UC-NI 


flos  1451 


RITT6R 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COMPLIMENTS  OF  TO.  £•  HITTER 
Studies  along  the  way 


BOOKS  BY 
WILLIAM    EMERSON    HITTER 

THE  HIGHER  USEFULNESS  OP  SCI- 
ENCE. 

THE  UNITY  OP  THE  ORGANISM.  Il- 
lustrated. 

THE  UNITY  OP  THE  ORGANIC  SPECIES, 
WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THE 
HUMAN  SPECIES. 


RICHARD  G.  BADGER,  PUBLISHER,  BOSTON 


THE  HIGHER  USEFULNESS 
OF  SCIENCE 


AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 

WILLIAM  EMERSON  HITTER 

Director  of  the  Scrippt  Institution  for 

Biological  Retearch  of  the  University 

of  California,  La  Jotta, 

California 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY  RICHARD  G.  BADGER 
All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 
ELLEN  BROWNING  SCRIPPS 

LOVER  AND   HELPER   OF 
GOOD  THINGS 


INTRODUCTION 

READING  these  essays  after  the  words  and  sen- 
tences which  compose  them  have  lain  fallow  in 
my  mind  for  many  months,  I  find  myself  beset  with 
solicitude  lest  they  shall  not  accomplish  the  purpose 
for  which  they  were  originally  written,  and  for  which 
they  are  now  given  book  form.  That  purpose  was  to 
bring  to  the  attention  of  the  public — to  educated, 
thoughtful  people  first,  then  afterwards  to  the  intelli- 
gent rank  and  file — a  certain  way  of  looking  upon  the 
living  world  generally,  and  man  particularly,  which  I 
believe  to  be  vital  to  human  welfare.  The  significance 
of  the  scientific  point  of  view  which  underlies  these 
essays  has  been  gradually  forcing  itself  upon  my  mind 
through  many  years,  as,  started  from  and  impelled  by 
purely  scientific  motives  in  the  first  instance,  the  stand- 
point itself  has  slowly  taken  shape.  Now,  the  world- 
struggle  at  arms,  in  which  our  country  has  inevitably 
become  fully  involved,  is  upon  us  and  convinces  me 
more  than  ever  of  the  mighty  part  "point  of  view," 
theory,  philosophy — call  it  what  you  wih1 — plays  in 
the  affairs  of  civilized  mankind. 

Who  in  the  United  States  to-day,  when  the  Nation  is 
giving  for  an  ideal  its  lives  and  its  treasure  with  a  lav- 

5 


6  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

ishness  and  an  ungrudgingness  that  could  not  have 
been  imagined  a  few  months  ago,  has  anything  to  say 
for  the  "practical"  as  a  controlling  motive  in  our  lives  ? 
It  actually  seems  that  the  broader  the  guiding  theory 
— the  idea  and  the  ideal — the  stronger  its  impulsion  to 
activity!  What  broader  and  in  many  respects  more 
imperfectly  defined  idea  can  you  think  of  than  "the 
world  for  democracy"?  Yet  somehow  we  are  all  cer- 
tain it  is  a  worthy,  a  noble  idea — so  worthy  and  so 
noble  that  we  are  glad  to  have  it  completely  dominate 
our  practical  lives. 

Theories  are  beyond  question  superlatively  influen- 
tial things  among  civilized  men.  And  it  matters  little 
how  broad  and  vague  they  are  so  long  as  we  are  con- 
vinced that  they  deeply  concern  our  personal  welfare 
and  the  welfare  of  our  kind.  In  support  of  theories 
so  appraised  we  are  willing,  finally,  to  give  our  lives 
and  our  consuming  intellectual  labor  also,  to  gaining 
an  understanding  of  them  if  only  we  are  convinced  of 
their  human  worth.  Can  we  become  as  thoroughly 
convinced  of  the  value  of  theories  of  life  formulated 
by  accurate,  patient,  dry  science,  as  we  are  of  the 
value  of  corresponding  theories  formulated  by  the- 
ology, or  of  the  value  of  theories  of  national  life  for- 
mulated from  political  experience?  If  so,  we  will  make 
sacrifices  for  those  theories — sacrifices  in  the  way  of 
time  and  mental  effort  to  understand  them. 

On  considerations  of  this  sort  I  base  my  hope  that 
the  ideas  set  forth  in  these  essays  and  in  other  writings 


Introduction  7 

of  mine  will  win  study.  They  will  so  win  if  the  feeling 
is  somehow  aroused  that  they  are  vital  to  human  weal. 
Otherwise  they  will  not;  for  the  essays  are  certainly 
not  easily  entertaining. 

The  teachings  clustered  together  under  the  caption 
"organic  evolution"  spring  to  the  center  of  one's 
thought  at  once  when  a  scientific  view  of  life  is 
spoken  of,  for  really  there  is  no  scientific  theory  of  life 
which  does  not  include  an  evolutionary  conception  of 
some  sort.  Further,  evolution  is  probably  rarely  dis- 
sociated to-day  in  anybody's  thinking  from  natural 
selection — from  the  doctrine  of  struggle  for  existence 
and  survival  of  the  fittest.  But  apparently  few  per- 
sons outside  of  Germany  ever,  until  the  great  war  came 
on,  really  thought  out  how  the  doctrine  would  work 
in  actual  human  affairs  if  adopted  as  a  guiding  prin- 
ciple by  a  whole  mighty  people.  I  do  not  mean  to 
imply  by  this  that  the  biological  theory  of  survival  of 
the  fittest  is  alone  or  even  chiefly  responsible  for  the 
philosophy  which  has  brought  this  tremendous  conflict 
upon  the  world.  But  there  can  not  remain  any  longer 
a  shadow  of  doubt  that  the  doctrine  has  played  a 
direct  and  very  great  part  in  shaping  the  German 
theory  and  practice  of  national  life.  This  is  especially 
evidenced  by  the  glimpses  Vernon  Kellogg  has  given  us 
of  his  experiences  behind  the  German  battle  lines  in 
Belgium  and  France,  particularly  of  his  conversa- 
tions with  a  certain  German  officer,  himself  a  profes- 
sional biologist. 


8  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

But  probably  a  searching  study  of  the  whole  prob- 
lem would  discover  that  the  survival-of-the-fittest  hy- 
pothesis itself  has  not  been  so  large  an  element  in  de- 
termining Germany's  course  as  has  been  a  general 
view  of  life,  individual  and  social,  into  which  the 
narrower  selection-theory  could  easily  be  made  to  fit. 
A  theology  the  God  of  which  is  first  and  foremost  a 
god  of  war  may  readily  join  forces,  so  far  as  its  prac- 
tical aims  are  concerned,  with  a  general  conception  of 
the  universe  one  of  whose  main  tenets  is  that  all 
progress  in  the  living  world  is  accomplished  by  om- 
nipresent, ruthless  conflict  and  destruction. 

A  point  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  that  while  the 
general  view  of  living  nature  to  which  I  have  been  led 
recognizes  the  utter  inadequacy  of  the  natural  selection 
hypothesis  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  living  world, 
and  so  the  un justifiability  of  applying  it  to  the 
progress  of  civilization  in  such  a  manner  as  many  per- 
sons, especially  the  Germans,  have  tried  to  apply  it, 
the  moral  aspect  of  the  matter  was  by  no  means  the 
original,  the  impelling  motive  of  my  inquiries.  Greatly 
important  as  I  am  now  persuaded  my  results  are  in 
this  way,  they  are  yet  only  an  incident,  only  a  by- 
product, of  the  inquiries.  All  my  efforts  in  the  larger 
aspects  of  biology  have  been  scientific  in  motive,  and, 
I  hope,  in  spirit  and  method.  They  have  been  induced 
by  a  deep-seated  dissatisfaction  with  biological  theo- 
ries themselves,  especially  with  theories  of  the  cause 
of  evolution. 


Introduction  9 

It  is  desirable  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
this  respect  the  present  case  accords  perfectly  with 
doctrines  of  nature  generally  in  their  bearing  on  human 
welfare.  No  matter  how  vitally  such  doctrines  may 
have  turned  out  to  affect  human  life,  they  had  in  the 
first  instance  no  reference  to  such  an  effect.  To  illus- 
trate: it  probably  did  not  occur  to  Copernicus  till  his 
work  was  done  that  his  heliocentric  hypothesis  of  plan- 
etary motion  would  be  of  much  significance  for  men's 
religious  and  moral  beliefs  and  conduct.  And  so  was 
it  with  Galileo,  with  Vesalius,  with  Kepler  and  with 
Darwin.  Nothing  could  have  been  remoter  from  Dar- 
win's thoughts  as  he  was  working  out  the  natural  selec- 
tion hypothesis  than  the  fact  that  it  would  be  made 
such  use  of  as  the  Germans  and  others  have  put  it  to. 

I  dwell  briefly  upon  this  general  principle  with  the 
hope  that  I  may  thereby  win  something  of  tolerance  if, 
despite  my  anxious  effort  to  be  as  simple  and  lucid  as 
the  topics  treated  will  permit,  I  shall  yet  seem  need- 
lessly technical  and  shoppish  and  recondite. 

Perhaps  I  had  better  state  here  in  as  bald  a  way  as 
I  can  what  the  standpoint  is  in  which  I  have  so  great 
faith  as  a  medicament  for  the  bloody  and  deadly 
philosophy  of  life  which  has  come  to  dominate  the 
world,  and  which  Germany  has  outstripped  all  other 
countries  in  exploiting.  The  kernel  of  it  is  that  the 
unifying,  the  coordinating  forces  of  nature — all  na- 
ture, but  particularly  animate  nature — are  far  more 
fundamental  and  potent,  and  so  philosophically  sig- 


10  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

nificant,  than  any  doctrine  of  origination  which  has 
so  far  gained  a  dominating  influence  has  taken  into 
account.  Integration  is  a  term  that  has  come  much 
into  use  in  my  scientific  thought  and  speech.  It  has 
become  for  me  a  complement,  a  constitutive  antithesis, 
as  I  often  express  it,  of  differentiation.  But  differenti- 
ation has  been  the  well-nigh  sole  conception  of  most 
evolutionary  thinking  up  to  now.  Indeed,  in  many 
minds  evolution  appears  to  be  nearly  if  not  quite 
synonymous  with  differentiation.  Hence  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  doctrines.  They  wholly  neglect  or  grossly 
slight  one  half  of  the  process  which  nature  actually 
employs  in  organic  creation. 

Assuming  my  main  contention  to  be  right,  then  the 
most  superficial  humanistic  thinker  will  see  that  it  is 
sure  to  be  important  for  mankind.  For  is  not  the 
problem  of  the  relation  among  men  the  very  founda- 
tion of  all  social  and  political  and  moral  theory  and 
practice?  What  subject  has  occupied  more  of  men's 
thought  and  feeling  in  these  later  decades  especially, 
than  that  of  combination,  of  cooperation,  of  unification 
in  almost  all  the  activities  of  civilized  life?  But  if  it 
turns  out  that  some  of  the  basal  principles  of  such 
unification  are  embedded  so  deep  in  the  nature  of  the 
living  world  and  of  man  that  they  can  be  brought  into 
light  only  through  the  most  painstaking  searches  by  a 
considerable  number  of  persons  who  devote  their  whole 
lives  to  such  pursuits,  is  it  not  probable  that  no  matter 
how  simply  and  lucidly  these  principles  are  stated,  they 


Introduction  11 

will  still  be  somewhat  involved,  will  not  be  altogether 
easy  of  comprehension?  Indeed,  is  it  not  the  way  of 
much  that  is  truly  worth  while  to  be  a  little  hard  in 
places,  hard  to  understand  and  hard  to  endure? 

I  have  done  my  best  to  make  the  arguments  compre- 
hensible to  any  educated  person  impelled  by  a  genuine 
desire  to  understand  them.  These  italicized  words 
touch,  as  I  have  previously  indicated,  the  cardinal 
question,  the  answer  to  which  will  measure  the  volume's 
fate.  If  a  reader  finds  anything  in  the  book — in  its 
general  title  or  the  titles  of  any  of  the  four  essays, 
or  in  any  of  the  subheadings,  or  any  of  the  sentences 
or  paragraphs  taken  by  themselves,  that  makes  him 
strongly  suspect  the  discussions  deal  with  matters  of 
vital  concern  to  him  personally  and  to  his  fellow  beings, 
he  will  follow  the  essays  through  and  find  few  incom- 
prehensible spots  in  them.  I  am  quite  sure  there  is 
nothing  harder  to  understand  in  them  than  there  is, 
for  example,  in  the  Book  of  Job,  in  some  of  Saint 
Paul's  letters,  or  in  parts  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  Key  to  the 
Scriptures  and  Guide  to  Health. 

Each  of  the  essays  was  written  originally  for  a  par- 
ticular group  of  persons  and  a  particular  occasion, 
and  each,  consequently,  bears  the  marks  of  its  en- 
vironment— in  true  bio-evolutional  fashion.  What  the 
original  and  form-influencing  environment  of  each  was 
is  indicated  by  a  footnote  appended  to  each  essay  itself. 

The  order  in  which  the  essays  are  placed  in  the  vol- 
ume is  almost  if  not  quite  the  reverse  of  that  in  which 


18  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

the  common  point  of  view  underlying  them  has  devel- 
oped in  the  author's  mind.  It  is,  too,  the  reverse  order, 
probably,  from  that  which  would  be  congenial  to  most 
scientific  men.  If,  consequently,  the  scientifically- 
minded  reader,  particularly  if  he  be  naturalis tf-minded, 
chooses  to  read  the  fourth  essay  first  and  the  first 
fourth,  he  will,  I  assure  him,  come  out  at  the  same 
place,  so  far  as  the  main  thought  is  concerned,  as 
though  he  were  to  read  them  in  the  order  in  which  they 
stand. 

The  arrangement  adopted  is  that  which  seemed  most 
likely  to  gain  the  interest  of  the  general  reader.  "Know 
Thyself"  certainly  skirts  along  the  edge  of  a  field 
which  has  interested  many  persons  of  diverse  spiritual 
bent  in  many  ages — even  enters  it  here  and  there;  so 
I  have  assumed  that  it  would  be  more  likely  to  make 
an  initial  appeal  to  non-scientific  readers  than  would 
"The  Place  of  Description,  Definition  and  Classifica- 
tion in  Philosophical  Biology."  What  I  have  tried  to 
do  is  to  so  bait  my  hooks  that  I  may  catch  the  largest 
number  of  readers  possible  for  all  the  essays. 

I  am  grateful  to  Professor  J.  McKeen  Cattell  for 
permission  to  republish  "The  Place  of  Description, 
Definition  and  Classification  in  Philosophical  Biology," 
it  having  first  appeared  in  The  Scientific  Monthly. 

The  Publications  Committee  of  the  University  of 
Texas  have  kindly  allowed  me  to  reprint  "Know  Thy- 
self," and  I  tender  to  these  gentlemen  my  best  thanks 
for  this  permission. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 5 

KNOW  THYSELF 17 

THE  HIGHER  USEFULNESS  OF  SCIENCE      ...  49 

1.  THE  MORAL  ACCOUNTABILITY  OF  SCIENCE      .  49 

2.  How  SCIENCE  MAY  MEET  ITS  MORAL  OBLI- 

GATIONS       56 

BIOLOGY'S  CONTRIBUTION  TO  A  THEORY  OF  MORALS 

REQUISITE  FOR  MODERN  MEN  ...  91 

THE  PLACE  OF  DESCRIPTION,  DEFINITION  AND  CLAS- 
SIFICATION IN  PHILOSOPHICAL  BIOLOGY      .  105 

1.  SCIENTIFIC  AND  LOGICAL  ASPECT   .         .         .  105 

2.  PHILOSOPHICAL  AND  ETHICAL  ASPECT    .         .126 

INDEX 137 


THE  HIGHER  USEFULNESS 
OF  SCIENCE 


THE  HIGHER  USEFULNESS 
OF  SCIENCE 


KNOW  THYSELF 

Interpreted  by  Socrates,  Shakespeare,  Harvey  and 
Modern  Men* 

EVERY  wise  modern  heeds  the  admonition,  Know 
Thou  Thyself,  no  less  religiously  than  did  that 
one  of  the  Seven  Sages  who  uttered  it  first.  What  do 
the  words  mean  to-day?  We  no  longer  post  them  over 
the  temple  door  of  the  Delphic  oracle.  But  if  we  were 
to  inscribe  them  on  any  of  our  temples,  which  should 
they  be — those  of  Religion,  Art,  Education,  or  Sci- 
ence? Let  my  contribution  to  this  festival  week  be  a 
plea  for  renewed  devotion  to  this  injunction,  and  for 
the  adoption  of  it  in  all  our  temples. 

*  Given  originally  as  one  of  four  addresses  which  were  parts  of 
a  five-day  Commemoration  program  of  the  Shakespeare  Tercente- 
nary and  of  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  at 
the  University  of  Texas,  April  22-26,  1916,  and  first  published  in 
A  Memorial  Volume  to  Shakespeare  and  Harvey,  by  the  Univer- 
sity, as  University  of  Texas  Bulletin  No.  1701,  January  1,  1917. 

17 


18  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

Historically  the  mandate  recalls  unending  discus- 
sions on  abstract  philosophy  in  a  dusty,  musty  past, 
and  causes  something  of  a  shudder;  so  the  proposal  to 
devote  this  hour  to  it  may  seem  like  proposing  to  make 
the  hour  dull  and  heavy.  But  we  are  living  in  a  cruelly 
heavy  time.  No  matter  how  determinedly  we  may  re- 
solve to  forget  for  the  moment  the  gigantic  events  in 
the  midst  of  which  we  are,  the  deeper  currents  of  our 
conscious  lives  can  not  escape  them. 

Calamity  is  the  great  tester  of  philosophy.  A 
period  like  this  reveals  to  men  the  sort  of  theories  and 
ideals  of  life  they  have  been  nurturing  as  nothing  else 
can, 

The  last  few  generations  of  Westerners  have  been 
boastfully  confident  that  they  have  largely  outgrown 
philosophy  and  have  emerged  finally  into  the  clear  light 
of  practicality.  But  what  disillusionment  we  are  un- 
dergoing !  Who  does  not  see  now  as  probably  he  never 
saw  before,  the  necessity  of  probing  to  the  roots  every- 
thing pertaining  to  human  relations?  And  does  not 
about  the  first  move  in  this  direction  discover  that  our 
supposed  practical  age  has  in  reality  been  permeated 
with  the  most  diverse  and  far-reaching  though  little 
criticized  doctrines?  A  few  students  have  been  all 
along  awake  to  the  import  of  such  doctrines  as  those 
of  materialistic  determinism  in  human  history,  of 
"economic  society,"  and  of  Malthusianism ;  but  not  till 
lately  have  any  considerable  number  of  persons  sup- 
posed that  these  doctrines  were  of  much  practical  con- 


Know  Thyself  19 

sequence.  How  many,  in  our  country  at  least,  had 
even  guessed  before  these  last  months,  what  a  philoso- 
phy of  Militarism  and  a  theory  of  the  State  are  capa- 
ble of  doing? 

To  know  one's  self  implies  a  theory  of  self.  The 
bloody  disorder  now  filling  the  world  is,  I  am  persuaded, 
largely  a  consequence  of  inadequate  and  erroneous  the- 
ories of  self  and  of  society,  that  have  prevailed 
through  the  centuries,  and  though  improved,  still  pre- 
vail. It  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  occasion  will  justify 
us  in  thinking  on  this  great  matter  even  though  our 
thoughts  can  be  in  baldest  outline  only. 

My  fundamental  thesis  is  twofold:  there  are  many 
more  vital  constituents  in  human  nature  than  dominat- 
ing theories  of  man  have  taken  account  of;  and  these 
constituents  interact  upon  one  another  far  more  widely 
and  fundamentally  than  theory  has  recognized. 

To  each  of  the  great  primal  divisions  of  man's  na- 
ture taken  separately,  to  spiritual  man  and  to  physical 
man,  great  attention  has  been  given.  Particularly  in 
previous  centuries  theology  and  philosophy  wrought 
out  doctrines  of  man's  spiritual  nature  with  unbounded 
zeal  and  industry  and  skill.  And  in  modern  times 
biology  with  its  numerous  subdivisions  has  builded  in 
the  realm  of  his  physical  nature  with  no  less  zeal  and 
industry  and  skill.  But  never  have  the  theories  in  the 
two  realms  been  brought  together  into  anything  like 
a  consistent  harmonious  whole.  Indeed  it  has  too 
often  been  a  cardinal  doctrine  of  each  side  that  no  such 


20  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

getting  together  is  possible;  that  its  own  triumph  de- 
mands the  utter  subjugation  of  the  other  side.  The 
misery  that  human-kind  has  brought  upon  itself 
through  the  false  theory  that  success  is  attainable  only 
by  the  complete  overthrow  of  an  adversary ! 

But  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  in  the  two  great 
realms  of  sociology  and  medicine,  the  enormous  activity 
of  recent  decades  is  resulting,  however  vaguely  the 
fact  may  be  recognized,  in  breaking  down  the  imper- 
meable bulkhead  that  has  so  long  separated  theories  of 
man's  spiritual  being  from  theories  of  his  physical 
being. 

That  manufacture,  trade,  finance,  and  industrial  and 
political  organization,  sanitation  and  criminology,  are 
intrinsically  physical  no  one  can  refute;  yet  the  occa- 
sional excursions  I  have  made  into  these  fields  convince 
me  of  a  growing  recognition  among  leaders,  that  no 
matter  how  severely  material  any  particular  problem 
may  be,  rational,  moral,  esthetic,  and  religious  elements 
are  always  present  and  demand  consideration.  I  am 
quite  sure  all  economic  theory  to-day  is  seeing  the 
inevitability  and  power  of  ethical  factors  far  more 
than  formerly. 

In  medicine,  too,  there  is  growing  recognition  that 
attention  to  physical  matters  alone  can  not  reach  the 
highest  success  in  the  actual  task  of  restoring  sick 
men  and  women  to  health,  and  keeping  them  healthy. 
No  successful  physician,  I  believe,  wholly  ignores  the 
psychical  element  in  his  patient,  however  scantily  his 


Know  Thyself  21 

formal  training  may  have  fitted  him  for  this  side  of  his 
work.  The  not  distant  future  is,  I  think,  bound  to  see 
the  now  rudimentary  psycho-therapy  work  great 
changes  in  medical  theory  and  practice. 

The  "get  together"  slogan  of  modern  business  is 
needed  in  modern  philosophy.  As  a  man  of  science  I 
am  filled  with  consternation  as  I  come  really  to  think 
about  the  part  science  has  been  made  to  play  in  the 
present  world  holocaust.  Superposed  upon  the  physi- 
cal tragedy  of  the  Lusitania  I  see  another  tragedy  no 
less  shocking — a  tragedy  of  the  human  soul. 

The  civilization  of  the  modern  West  is  the  climax  of 
all  the  civilizations  of  the  world,  and  its  most  distinctive 
attribute  is  physical  science.  So  men  of  science  have 
affirmed  and  hardly  any  one  has  questioned  the  affirma- 
tion. In  no  way,  all  agree,  is  the  greatness  of  science 
more  manifest  than  in  its  application  to  satisfying  the 
practical  needs  and  desires  of  man.  And  few  achieve- 
ments of  applied  science  have  been  more  applauded 
than  the  trans-oceanic  liner. 

Now  behold  the  marvel  that  has  come  to  pass !  Sci- 
ence produces  and  successfully  operates  these  noble 
ships  and  at  the  self-same  time  and  in  much  the  same 
way,  not  only  produces  an  instrument  for  instantly 
destroying  them  but  actually  does  destroy  them,  heed- 
less that  hundreds  of  innocent  human  beings  are  in- 
volved in  the  ruin !  Has  the  world  ever  seen  or  con- 
ceived anything  more  astounding  at  the  hands  of  man? 
Is  it  really  true  that  the  motive  power  behind  civiliza- 


22  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

tion  can  do  nothing  greater  than  find  some  means  of 
destroying  anything  it  can  create?  Is  growth  in  civ- 
ilization purely  quantitative — purely  a  matter  of  giv- 
ing the  head-hunter's  business  greater  scope  and 
precision  and  power?  Is  the  making  of  hell  more 
hellish  the  supreme  achievement  of  science?  I  do  not 
believe  so  despite  the  strong  evidence  pointing  that 
way.  But  scientific  men  ought  to  recognize  that  the 
share  of  blame  and  shame  which  falls  to  science  is  not 
small. 

It  would  be  unjust  and  foolish  to  contend  under  pre- 
vailing conceptions  of  right  and  wrong  that  moral 
culpability  rests  upon  the  chemists,  the  physicists,  the 
engineers  and  others  who  have  participated  in  making 
the  war  machine  the  dreadful  thing  it  is.  But  when 
men  shall  come  to  know  themselves  and  other  men  and 
nature  as  these  really  are,  moral  law  if  not  civil  law 
will,  I  believe,  interdict  science  from  lending  itself  to 
the  dire  business  in  such  unrestrained  way  as  it  has 
hitherto. 

To  see  something  of  the  character  of  that  knowledge 
of  man  and  nature  which  would  tend  to  such  an  end 
is  the  task  before  us. 

That  wonderful  period,  the  later  16th  century  and 
the  earlier  17th,  in  which  the  two  great  Englishmen 
lived  whose  works  are  the  occasion  of  this  week's  meet- 
ings, contributed  more,  I  believe,  to  such  knowledge 
than  any  other  period  of  equal  length  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  Run  over  the  list  of  familiar  names  be- 


Know  Thyself  23 

longing  here.  Galileo,  Kepler,  Tycho  Brahe,  Torre- 
celli,  Giordano  Bruno,  and  Rene  Descartes  might  have 
seen  Shakespeare  act,  had  it  been  customary  then  for 
companies  to  which  he  belonged  to  tour  continental 
Europe;  and  Francis  Bacon  and  William  Harvey  may 
have  actually  seen  him  at  the  English  court.  Going 
only  a  trifle  outside  of  Shakespeare's  lifetime,  the  very 
year  that  baby  Will's  little  lungs  filled  with  air  for 
the  first  time,  Andreas  Vesalius  died  a  hungry  outcast* 
because  of  his  offense  in  proving  that  if  man  would 
really  know  himself,  one  source  of  his  knowledge  must 
be  the  dissection  of  the  dead  human  body.  And  "these 
bones"  of  the  great  author  of  his  own  epitaph  were 
scarcely  settled  to  their  long  rest  before  the  mothers 
of  Isaac  Newton,  John  Boyle,  John  Mayow,  Marcello 
Malpighi,  John  Ray,  and  Antony  van  Leeuwenhoeck 
had  given  birth  to  the  baby  sons  destined  to  develop 
into  these  notable  men. 

Entering  now  a  little  further  into  the  historical  side 
of  our  subject,  I  ask  you  to  recall  the  conditions  under 
which  Socrates  took  the  exhortation,  Know  Thyself,  as 
the  text  of  his  life-long  sermonizing  to  his  fellow 
Athenians.  For  a  century  before  Socrates,  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  little  community  was  charged  with  specu- 
lation about  the  mode  of  origin  of  the  world.  We  re- 
call how  a  single,  simple  primal  world-stuff  as  the  basis 
of  everything  was  a  self-evident  proposition  to  the 
Ionian  school,  while  a  thorough-going  multiplicity  or 
pluralism  seemed  equally  certain  to  another  school,  the 


24  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

later  elaborators  of  the  doctrines  of  Being  and  Becom- 
ing, who  contended  for  the  reality  of  the  things  as  they 
transform  into  one  another.  We  know,  too,  the  con- 
clusive arguments  by  which  it  was  proved  that  Water, 
Air,  and  Fire  is,  each  in  turn,  the  "real  thing"  in  the 
cosmic  matter  theory.  Further,  we  know  as  much, 
perhaps,  as  we  need  to  know  about  the  atomism  of 
Leucippus,  the  mind-stuff-ism  of  Anaxagoras,  the  num- 
berism  of  Pythagoras,  and  so  on.  Some  historians  of 
philosophy  have  aptly  called  the  first  stage  of  Greek 
philosophy  a  cosmological  period. 

Then  arose,  according  to  wont  in  such  cases,  the 
strong,  eager,  independent  and  courageous  protestant 
against  the  vapid  metaphysics  of  nature  then  preva- 
lent. The  new  seeker  after  truth  was  Socrates.  "For 
heaven's  sake,"  we  seem  to  hear  this  young  "knocker" 
exclaim  after  he  had  drunk  his  fill  at  the  approved 
fountains  of  wisdom,  "since  we  must  philosophize,  let' 
us  see  if  we  can't  find  a  way  of  doing  it  that  will  lead 
to  something  tangible  and  permanent,  and  above  all,  to 
something  of  consequence  to  human  beings."  About 
the  chief  ground  of  Socrates'  rebellion  was  that  man 
seemed  to  him  left  out  of  the  systems  against  which  he 
fought,  while  the  only  subject,  thought  he,  worthy  of 
serious  study  by  serious  men,  is  man  himself.  "God 
has  commanded  me  to  examine  men,"  and  "In  the  city 
I  can  learn  of  men,  but  the  fields  and  trees  teach  me 
nothing,"  he  said. 

Despite  Socrates'  failure  to  do  all  he  started  out  to 


Know  Thyself  25 

do  and  believed  he  was  doing,  we  must,  I  think,  recog- 
nize that  he  did  two  things  that  will  endure  forever  and 
be  true  for  all  realms  of  knowledge.  He  drove  home 
the  truth  that  since  all  knowledge  is  man's  knowledge 
— is  wrought  out  by  man  for  man — the  human  element 
can  never  be  eliminated  from  it  no  matter  how  purely 
objective  it  may  seem  to  be;  and  that  the  process  of 
knowledge-getting  itself  must  be  critically  examined  in 
order  that  knowledge  may  be  trustworthy.  What 
greater  service  has  ever  been  rendered  mankind,  what 
service  is  more  needed  in  this  very  day,  than  that  of 
convicting  us  of  that  "shameful  ignorance  which  con- 
sists in  thinking  we  know  when  we  do  not  know"  ? 

But  while  acknowledging  Socrates'  great  merit  in 
recognizing  the  necessity  of  critically  examining  the 
process  of  knowledge-getting,  we  must  not  be  blind  to 
the  disastrous  incompleteness  of  the  results  he  reached 
by  his  own  efforts.  The  theory  of  knowledge  which  he 
evolved  was  a  theory  of  only  one-half  of  knowledge. 
Know  thyself,  meant  to  him  know  thyself  subjectively 
only.  It  did  not  mean  know  thyself  objectively.  It 
meant  know  half  of  thyself,  not  thy  whole  self. 

Recall  the  interpretation  he  put  upon  the  Delphic 
oracle's  pronouncement  that  he  was  the  wisest  of  men. 
He  was  wise,  he  said,  because  he  knew  he  knew  nothing, 
whereas  others  reputed  to  be  wise  did  not  know  their 
own  ignorance.  But  what  sort  of  ignorance  was  it  in 
which  he  gloried?  Why,  ignorance  of  everything  ex- 
cept himself  and  "himself"  taken  subjectively.  Refut- 


26  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

ing  the  charge  that  "Socrates  is  an  evil-doer,  who 
meddles  with  inquiries  into  things  beneath  the  earth, 
and  in  heaven,"  he  insisted  that  it  was  false  and  unjust 
for  Aristophanes  to  represent  him  as  suspending  him- 
self in  a  basket  and  pretending  that  he  was  walking  on 
air  when,  the  truth  is,  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  these 
matters  as  all  knew  who  had  conversed  with  him.  No 
one,  he  said,  ever  heard  him  talk  about  anything 
earthy. 

Now  for  the  fatal  practical  weakness  in  the  Socratic 
interpretation  of  man.  Did  its  doctrine  of  self  impli- 
cate nothing  but  a  theory  of  concepts  and  cognition, 
while  it  would  be  of  much  interest  to  psychologists  and 
logicians  and  epistemologists,  it  would  not  vitally  con- 
cern the  great  rank  and  file  of  men.  But  owing  to  the 
fact,  which  Socrates  recognized,  that  a  theory  of 
knowledge  does  finally  and  inevitably  implicate  a  theory 
of  morality,  and  to  the  further  fact  that  a  theory  of 
morality  finally  and  inevitably  implicates  morality 
itself,  it  has  turned  out  that  this  philosophy  has  been 
and  still  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  whole 
world  affected  by  it,  that  is,  to  what  we  call  the  West- 
ern World.  The  kernel  of  the  matter  is  that  Soc- 
rates' doctrine  of  self  was  a  doctrine  of  myself  and 
not  of  yourself.  It  gives  an  assumed  reality  and  fun- 
damentality  to  me  that  it  does  not  give  to  you.  It 
does  not  recognize  that  other  selves  are  as  essential 
to  my  existence  as  is  myself. 

The  ethical  system  launched  by  Socrates  and  con- 


Know  Thyself  87 

tinued  down  to  this  very  day  is  a  system  of  subjective 
egoism.  It  never  has  recognized  and  is  not  capable  of 
recognizing  the  real  nature  of  human  interdependence. 
It  never  has  felt  nor  can  it  feel  the  full  measure  of 
man's  obligation  to  man.  That  virtue  which  in  the 
Socratic  system  is  the  concomitant  of  knowledge  is  not 
full  and  practical  virtue.  It  is  a  virtue  diluted  with 
mock  humility  and  aloofness  from  human  affairs. 

One  other  consequence  of  the  Socratic  theory  of  life 
must  be  noticed,  though  it  will  have  to  be  touched  even 
more  cursorily  than  those  previously  noticed.  Soc- 
rates "had  it  in  for"  the  poets  quite  as  well  as  for  the 
wise  men,  i.  e.,  the  philosophers  of  nature.  Why  was 
this?  That  he  should  have  had  a  grudge  against  the 
comic  poets  is  not  surprising,  for  he  had  felt  the  sting 
of  their  ridicule.  But  why  did  he  pronounce  the  great 
tragedians  and  the  others  of  his  time  as  without  wis- 
dom, and  so,  according  to  his  theory,  without  virtue? 
Because  they  too  were  too  much  occupied  with  other 
things  than  concepts.  Like  the  physicists,  they  treated 
the  world  outside  of  and  beyond  themselves  with  too 
much  consideration.  Even  their  gods  were  more  exter- 
nal and  objective  than  he  could  tolerate.  The  point 
of  consequence  in  this  for  us  is  that  a  great  poet,  as 
Shakespeare  for  example,  deals  with  externality  no 
less  than  does  the  physical  scientist.  The  poet  is  an 
interpreter  of  nature — of  sensuous  nature — no  less 
than  is  the  naturalist.  To  him  other  selves  are  as  real 


28  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

and  significant  and  interesting  as  our  own  selves,  just 
as  they  are  with  great  naturalists. 

Look  now  in  summary  at  what  man's  effort  to  know 
himself  had  accomplished  by  the  time  Socrates  was 
compelled  to  drink  the  deadly  cup. 

First,  the  urgency  of  the  problem  had  been  more 
definitely  and  keenly  felt  than  ever  before.  In  the 
second  place,  it  had  been  formulated  with  a  fullness 
and  definiteness  that  had  not  hitherto  been  approached. 
Further,  the  twofoldness  of  man's  nature,  his  spiritual 
group  of  attributes  and  his  physical  group  had  been 
so  sharply  differentiated  from  each  other  that  they  had 
seemed  to  belong  to  two  distinct  realms  of  existence. 
So  different  in  kind  were  the  two  groups  seen  to  be 
that  it  was  conceived  they  must  have  originated  in 
antipodal  parts  of  the  universe  and  that  their  being 
together  must  be  more  or  less  fortuitous  and  tem- 
porary. The  ultimate  essence  of  man  could  not  con- 
tain so  much  that  is  incongruous,  contradictory,  and 
even  actively  hostile,  reasoned  the  leaders  of  thought 
of  this  early  period.  And  so  the  two  great  currents  of 
interpretation  of  man  were  started  that  have  flowed 
down  through  the  centuries  of  western  civilization,  each 
sometimes  quite  oblivious  of  the  other,  while  at  other 
times  mingling  more  or  less,  too  often  in  bitter  jealousy 
and  strife  as  to  their  respective  rights  and  powers  and 
excellencies.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  sep- 
aration has  not  always  existed,  with  the  whole  human 
species.  That  it  has  particularly  characterized  west- 


Know  Thyself  29 

ern  and  Christian  civilization  is  a  fact  of  great  signifi- 
cance. Especially  important  is  it  to  understand  that 
in  western  Asiatic  civilization,  the  civilization  from 
which  Christianity  came,  there  has  never  been  any  such 
sharp  differentiation  of  the  currents  as  the  western 
world  is  accustomed  to.  On  this  point  the  testimony 
of  Abrahm  Mitrie  Rihbany,  a  Syrian  by  nativity  and 
early  education,  is  invaluable.  Here  we  only  call  atten- 
tion to  the  entire  absence  in  the  philosophy  of  his 
countrymen,  of  a  dividing  line  between  the  sacred  and 
the  profane,  the  natural  and  the  miraculous.  And  it  is 
significant  that  among  the  Syrians  the  absence  of  such 
demarcation  has  been  attended  with  that  "undisguised 
realism,"  using  Mr.  Rihbany's  phrase,  touching  human 
propagation,  which  reformers  in  our  own  society  are 
bent  upon  accomplishing. 

Our  study  of  man's  effort  to  know  himself  must  now 
fling  itself  across  two  thousand  years  to  the  period  of 
Shakespeare  and  Harvey.  Particularly  must  we  in- 
quire what  Harvey  did  to  further  the  enterprise  of 
gaining  self-knowledge. 

But  we  must  not  enter  upon  this  new  phase  of  our 
study  without  recalling  another  ancient  doctrine  which 
has  been  and  seems  destined  always  to  be  of  the  utmost 
importance  in  its  influence  as  a  mediator  between  the 
two  antagonistic  interpretations  of  man.  I  refer  to 
the  doctrine  of  human  brotherhood  which  first  came  to 
clear  and  measurably  adequate  expression  in  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Despite  the  libraries  that 


30  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

have  been  written  on  this  subject  and  the  mighty  force 
it  has  been  in  the  lives  of  millions  of  men  and  women, 
I  am  persuaded  the  full  meaning  of  it  has  not  yet  been 
grasped.  Not  yet  has  Anthropology  accepted  the  ob- 
jective phenomena  of  man's  nature  to  which  the  doc- 
trine answers  with  sufficient  insight  and  freedom  from 
doubt;  and  not  yet  has  Christian  theology  searched 
deeply  and  broadly  enough  into  the  psychology  of  the 
emotional  nature  of  individual  human  beings  apper- 
taining to  their  relations  with  one  another. 

Our  study  will  bring  us  to  touch  upon  this  transcend- 
ently  important  matter  later.  For  the  present,  William 
Harvey  and  his  work  primarily,  and  William  Shake- 
speare and  his  work  secondarily,  must  occupy  us. 

Taking  up  Harvey  and  his  work  first,  we  may  begin 
by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  while  all  biologists 
recognize  that  Harvey  was  the  very  embodiment  of 
modernity  in  science  so  far  as  concerns  the  spirit  and 
method  of  his  work  on  the  circulation,  few  notice  that 
he  was  also  a  positively  religious  man.  The  testimony 
to  this  effect  is  ample. 

We  now  look  in  the  briefest  way  possible  to  so  much 
of  Harvey's  work  as  pertains  vitally  to  this  discourse. 
The  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  was  the 
first  great  demonstration  by  rigorous  methods  of  ob- 
servation, experimentation  and  reasoning,  of  the  va- 
rious anatomico-physiological  systems  that  enter  into 
the  composition  of  each  higher  organism.  Harvey  did 
not  discover  the  several  elements  of  the  circulatory 


Know  Thyself  31 

mechanism:  heart,  arteries,  veins,  valves  and  so  on.* 
These  were  known  long  before  his  time.  What  he  did 
was  to  prove  how  these  are  interrelated,  how  they 
operate  together  and  depend  upon  one  another,  how, 
for  example,  the  work  of  the  heart  is  supplemented  by 
the  muscularity  of  the  arterial  walls,  and  how  the 
valves  of  the  veins  aid  the  veins  in  returning  the  sys- 
temic blood  to  the  heart.  Hitherto  anatomy  and 
physiology  had  been  largely  sciences  of  the  members 
of  the  body.  With  this  discovery  they  were  started  on 
their  way  as  sciences  of  the  systems  of  our  members. 

Discovery  after  discovery  closely  dependent  upon 
that  made  by  Harvey  soon  followed,  revealing  still  fur- 
ther the  nature  and  interdependence  of  the  body  parts. 
Only  one  group  of  these  need  detain  us  now.  The  dem- 
onstration of  that  interrelationship  between  the  blood 
and  nervous  systems  which  constitutes  the  vaso-motor 
system,  and  which  opened  the  way  for  our  present  in- 
sight into  the  so-called  organic  sensations  and  our 
physico-psychic  conception  of  the  emotions,  must  be 
counted  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  progeny  of  Har- 

*  Modern  historical  inquiries  into  the  discovery  of  the  circulation 
make  it  certain,  as  Luigi  Luciani  points  out  (Human  Physiology, 
trans,  by  F.  A.  Welby),  that  Harvey's  predecessors,  notably  Ces- 
alpinus  and  Sarpi,  came  much  nearer  a  clear  understanding  of 
the  operations  of  the  heart  and  blood  vessels  than  Harvey's  writ- 
ings take  cognizance  of.  The  history  of  the  discovery  is  highly 
interesting  both  scientifically  and  from  the  standpoint  of  the  psy- 
chology of  discovery;  but  the  question  of  due  credit  to  the  various 
investigators  who  contributed  to  the  final  result  does  not  affect  the 
argument  of  this  essay. 


32  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

vey's  germinal  discovery.  That  the  James-Lange 
theory  of  emotion  may  be  regarded  as  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  Harvey's  discovery,  indeed  was  adumbrated  by 
Harvey  himself,  is  seen  in  his  refutation  of  the  old  no- 
tion that  the  heart  is  the  seat  of  the  emotions.  "Every 
affection  of  the  mind,"  he  writes,  "that  is  attended  with 
pleasure  and  pain,  with  hope  and  fear,  is  simply  the 
cause  of  an  agitation  which  extends  to  the  heart  and 
there  induces  change  from  natural  constitution,  im- 
pairing nutrition,  depressing  the  powers  of  life,  and 
so  engendering  disease." 

Compare  this  with  the  following  by  Professor  C. 
Lange,  like  Harvey  a  physician.  "It  is  the  vasomotor 
system  that  we  have  to  thank  for  the  whole  emotional 
aspect  of  our  mental  life,  for  our  joys  and  sorrows,  our 
hours  of  happiness  and  misery.  If  the  objects  that 
affect  our  senses  had  not  the  power  to  throw  this  sys- 
tem into  action,  we  should  travel  through  life  indiffer- 
ent and  dispassionate." 

The  conception  of  emotion  held  by  modern  psychol- 
ogy undoubtedly  differs  in  important  respects  from 
that  suggested  by  Harvey.  But  it  is  clear  that  they 
have  this  in  common:  all  our  deepest  sentiments  and 
passions,  good  and  bad,  are  inseparably  connected 
with  and  dependent  upon  our  general  body  constitu- 
tion, especially  upon  our  vasomotor  mechanism.  It 
seems  to  be  literally  and  not  figuratively  true  that 
when  we  love  or  hate,  are  joyous  or  sad,  feel  exalted 
or  depressed,  kindly  or  hatefully  disposed  toward  all 


Know  Thyself  33 

about  us,  and  are  intense  about  it,  our  whole  being, 
body  no  less  than  soul,  is  fundamentally  implicated. 
Nor  does  Harvey  fail  to  let  us  know  how  his  objective 
discoveries  fitted  into  his  deeper  conceptions  of  life 
and  nature.  Two  aspects  especially  of  his  researches 
brought  him  face  to  face  with  these  larger  problems. 
One  was  his  study  of  the  motion  of  the  heart;  the 
other  his  reflections  on  the  blood  as  the  vital  fluid  of 
the  body.  The  highwater  mark  of  his  ability  as  a 
philosophic  biologist  is  reached,  I  think,  in  his  handling 
of  these  two  matters.  His  main  treatise,  entitled  "An 
Anatomical  Disquisition  on  the  Motion  of  the  Heart 
and  Blood  in  Animals,"  is  devoted  solely  to  an  accurate 
and  full  description  of  the  structure  and  operation  of 
the  blood  system.  Questions  of  ultimate  causes  and 
reasons  he  hardly  touches  in  this  book  and  when  he 
does,  only  to  show  the  error  of  some  prevalent  teach- 
ing. "Whether  or  not,"  he  says,  "the  heart,  besides 
propelling  the  blood,  giving  it  motion  locally,  and  dis- 
tributing it  to  the  body,  adds  anything  else  to  it, — 
heat,  spirit,  perfection, — must  be  inquired  into  by  and 
by  and  decided  upon  other  grounds."  Observable 
facts  first,  was  his  watchword.  Casual  explanations 
and  appraisements  of  value  and  importance  must  come 
afterwards. 

Two  things  in  his  ability  to  combine  observation  and 
generalization  are  supremely  important.  First,  he  did 
not  for  an  instant  waver  in  accepting  the  validity  and 
the  worth  of  the  sensuous  elements  in  knowledge.  Soc- 


34  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

rates*  grilling  dialectic  would  never  have  wheedled 
Harvey  into  admitting  that  there  was  no  virtue  in  the 
knowledge  he  had  acquired  of  the  structure  and  move- 
ments of  the  heart,  or  that  this  knowledge  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  sort  of  self-knowledge  that  saves  souls. 
The  other  notable  thing  in  Harvey's  mode  of  inter- 
pretation of  natural  phenomena  was  his  insistence  on 
a  certain  inherency  and  virtue  in  each  object  itself. 
He  gave  no  quarter  to  that  kind  of  explanation  which 
tries  to  refer  everything  wholly  to  something  else, 
which  is  always  assuming  that  the  final  and  real 
essence  of  a  sensible  object  is  something  behind  the 
object  and  wholly  and  forever  hidden  from  the  senses. 
His  position  on  this  matter  is  well  brought  out  in  a 
treatise,  written  some  years  after  the  publication  of 
the  original  disquisition,  refuting  objections  that  had 
been  made  to  his  teaching  about  the  circulation. 
Speaking  on  the  old  theory  of  an  imponderable,  spir- 
ituous something  in  the  blood,  he  says:  "Physicians 
seem  for  the  major  part  to  conclude,  with  Hippocrates, 
that  our  body  is  composed  ...  of  three  elements: 
containing  parts,  contained  parts,  and  causes  of  action, 
spirits  being  understood  by  the  latter  term.  But  if 
spirits  are  to  be  taken  as  synonymous  with  causes  of 
activity,  whatever  has  power  in  the  living  body  and  a 
faculty  of  action  must  be  included  under  the  denomi- 
nation. It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  all  spirits 
were  neither  aerial  substances,  nor  powers,  nor  habits, 
nor  that  all  were  not  incorporeal.  .  .  .  The  spirits 


Know  Thyself  35 

which  flow  by  the  veins  or  the  arteries  are  not  distinct 
from  the  blood,  any  more  than  the  flame  of  a  lamp  is 
distinct  from  the  inflammable  vapour  that  is  on  fire, 
but  the  blood  and  these  spirits  signify  one  and  the  same 
thing  though  different — like  generous  wine  and  its 
spirits." 

This  reasoning  of  Harvey's  about  the  spirituous 
qualities  of  the  blood  is  not  materialistic,  as  some  care- 
less readers  would  take  for  granted.  It  is  not  because 
it  no  more  questions  the  reality  of  spiritual  qualities, 
that  is,  qualities  of  whatever  sort  have  "power  in  the 
living  body,"  than  it  questions  the  reality  of  physical 
qualities.  Blood,  notice,  not  living  matter,  is  what 
Harvey  is  talking  about.  He  is  not  postulating  some- 
thing or  other  behind  blood  that  explains  its  life- 
giving  attributes.  Nor  has  the  vast  chemico-physical 
knowledge  of  the  blood  acquired  since  Harvey  worked, 
altered  one  whit  his  interpretation  of  the  nature  of 
blood.  And  his  mode  of  reasoning  is  just  as  applicable 
to  the  brain  as  to  the  blood.  One  of  the  worst  misde- 
meanors the  transcendental  physiology  of  our  day  is 
guilty  of,  is  the  application  of  the  term  epiphenomenon 
to  consciousness. 

While  Harvey's  researches  on  the  blood  system  were 
undoubtedly  far  and  away  his  best,  what  he  did  on 
generation  can  not  be  neglected  even  in  a  brief  review 
of  his  contribution  to  man's  knowledge  of  himself.  The 
most  important  aspect  of  his  treatment  of  this  subject 
is  the  extent  to  which  he  compared  man  with  other 


36  Th#  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

organisms.  We  have  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  dis- 
covery of  the  circulation  was  a  preeminent  forward 
step  in  men's  perception  of  the  order,  the  unification 
there  is  in  his  own  individual  being.  The  studies  on 
generation  coupled  with  those  on  the  circulation  (for 
whatever  subject  engaged  him,  Harvey  never  neglected 
to  compare  man  with  all  the  creatures,  high  or  low,  he 
could  get  hold  of)  undoubtedly  contributed  greatly  to 
man's  perception  of  himself  as  a  member  of  the  great 
system  of  the  living  world.  The  demonstration  of  the 
circulation  was  a  revelation  of  a  prime  unity  within 
the  individual  man.  The  studies  on  generation,  while 
resulting  in  no  single  discovery  of  first  rank,  were 
definitely  on  the  road  to  the  demonstration  of  the 
individual's  unity  with  organic  nature  as  a  whole. 
"By  the  same  stages  in  the  development  of  every  ani- 
mal," he  said,  "passing  through  the  constitutions  of 
all,  I  may  say — ovum,  worm,  embryo — it  acquires  addi- 
tional perfection  in  each."  He  certainly  came  very 
near  the  now  familiar  truth  that  the  egg  is  the  starting 
point  in  the  life  career  of  almost  all  animals. 

Is  it  not  obvious  then,  that  by  the  end  of  the  great 
era  we  are  now  commemorating,  men  were  coming  to 
see  more  through  the  work  of  Harvey  than  through 
that  of  any  other  one  person,  that  the  ancient  motto, 
Know  Thyself,  could  not  be  restricted  to  the  temples 
of  religion  and  philosophy  but  must  be  placed  in  those 
of  science  as  well? 

Now  as  to  whether  the  work  of  Shakespeare  likewise 


Know  Thyself  37 

contains  evidence  of  a  growing  perception  of  the  essen- 
tial unity  between  the  physical  and  the  spiritual.  The 
poet  seems  to  be  the  preeminently  skilled  guesser  of  the 
human  species.  He  is  endowed  above  all  others  with 
the  faculty  of  apprehending  from  afar  the  hidden 
truths  of  nature.  Not  in  imagination  only,  but  in  the 
quality  of  sense  perception  is  he  superior  to  other  men. 
He  seems  to  know  what  is  "in  the  air"  of  his  time  bet- 
ter than  anybody  else. 

To  Shakespeare  man  was  the  most  absorbingly  inter- 
esting of  all  animals.  He  regarded  his  fellows  not  as 
problems  to  be  minutely  investigated,  but  as  creatures 
to  be  watched  for  the  purpose  of  guessing  what  they 
would  do  under  hypothetical  conditions. 

Just  what  sort  of  a  mixture  of  the  natural  and 
supernatural  the  animal  is  which  interested  him  so 
supremely,  seems  always  to  have  puzzled  Shakespeare. 
That  he  could  make  Macbeth,  about  as  unmitigated  a 
clod  of  animality  as  can  be  imagined,  scare  the  spirits 
into  telling  him  what  he  wanted  to  know  by  threatening 
them  with  an  eternal  curse,  illustrates  the  puzzled  state 
of  his  understanding.  But  on  the  whole  it  appears  that 
not  only  did  Shakespeare  find  the  natural  the  distinctly 
larger  ingredient  in  the  mixture,  but  that  as  he  grew  in 
experience  and  insight,  he  saw  more  and  more  of  the 
natural  and  saw  its  meaning  more  clearly. 

From  Venus  and  Adonis,  one  of  his  earliest  pro- 
ductions, to  The  Tempest,  one  of  his  latest,  I  seem 
to  find  a  distinct  advance  in  this  matter.  Possibly  my 


38  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

interpretation  of  Prospero  is  forced  into  conformity 
with  my  preconceptions,  but  does  not  his  setting  free 
of  Ariel  and  Caliban,  half-natural  beings  upon  whom 
he  had  relied  for  some  of  his  wonder-working,  and  his 
abjuring  of  "this  rough  magic,"  and  his  breaking  of 
"my  staff"  and  burying  it  "certain  fathoms  in  the 
earth,"  as  he  attains  the  highest  level  of  forgiveness 
and  well-wishing  toward  those  who  had  wronged  him, 
mean  that  only  when  he  became  a  man  and  a  man  only, 
was  he  at  his  best?  One  of  the  most  useful  bits  of 
Shakespearean  philosophy  I  have  come  upon  is  con- 
tained in  the  advice  of  Prospero  to  the  King  of  Naples 
who  is  perplexed  because  there  "is  more  in  this  business 
than  nature  was  ever  conduct  of." 

"Sir,  my  liege, 

Do  not  infest  your  mind  with  beating  on 
The  strangeness  of  this  business ;  at  picked  leisure 
Which  shall  be  shortly,  single  I'll  resolve  you, 
Which  to  you  shall  seem  probable,  of  every 
These  happened  accidents ;  till  then,  be  cheerful 
And  think  of  each  thing  well." 

Before  you  jump  beyond  the  bounds  of  nature  for 
the  explanation  of  things  that  are  hard  and  strange, 
think  well  and  cheerfully  on  each  item  and  decide 
which  of  the  several  possible  explanations  is  the  one 
most  probable.  What  more  wholesome  counsel  was 
ever  given!  I  am  sure  Socrates  never  advised  more 


Know  Thyself  39 

wisely. 

So  I  think  we  must  conclude  that  this  supreme  poet, 
too,  helped  to  convince  man  that  if  he  would  really 
know  himself,  he  must  know  himself  as  a  physical  as 
well  as  a  spiritual  being.  The  ancient  injunction  must 
be  adopted  in  the  temples  of  Poesy  and  all  Art  no 
less  than  in  those  of  Philosophy  and  Religion  and 
Science. 

What,  finally,  is  our  era  contributing  to  man's  un- 
derstanding of  himself?  What  does — what  must — the 
injunction  mean  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge? 
Under  the  necessity  of  being  brief  we  will  limit  the 
inquiry  here  to  the  realm  of  objective  science,  and  will 
notice  six  great  achievements  during  the  three  hun- 
dred years  since  Shakespeare  and  Harvey,  which  seem 
to  me  of  great  importance  in  their  bearing  on  the 
question.  These  are  (1)  the  formulation  of  the  law 
of  gravitation;  (£)  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  con- 
servation of  energy;  (3)  the  demonstration  of  the 
absolute  dependence  of  living  beings  on  a  few  well- 
known  non-living  chemical  substances  and  physical 
conditions,  and  the  discovery  of  many  of  the  laws  of 
this  dependence;  (4)  the  demonstration  that  both  indi- 
vidual living  beings  and  kinds  or  species  of  such  be* 
ings,  originate  from  other  individuals  and  species,  and 
so  far  as  can  be  made  out,  that  they  originate  in  no 
other  way;  (5)  the  demonstration  of  the  enormously 
wide,  if  not  the  universal  prevalence  in  the  living  world 
of  individual  specificity,  so  deep-seated  as  to  implicate 


40  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

much  of  the  individual's  chemico-physical  constitution ; 
and  finally,  (6)  the  demonstration  by  anthropology  in 
all  the  human  species  so  far  rigorously  investigated,  of 
the  whole  range  of  attributes,  physical  and  spiritual, 
that  are  most  characteristic  of  the  species.  These 
achievements  of  science  I  count  not  necessarily  as  the 
most  important  from  all  points  of  view,  but  only  from 
their  bearing  on  the  problem  of  the  fundamental  unity 
or,  as  it  seems  to  me  better  expressed,  integratedness, 
of  the  individual  man;  and  of  the  fundamental  inte- 
gratedness of  the  species  man  with  nature  generally. 

(1)  Let  gravitation  stand  as  the  type  of  physical 
integration,  and  let  us  remember  that  we  have  abso- 
lutely no  experimental  ground  on  which  to  base  a 
speculation  as  to  how  any  one  of  the  myriads  of  bodies 
in  the  universe  would  behave  were  it  entirely  alone. 
The  very  terms  in  which  the  law  is  stated  imply  at 
least  two  bodies  without  an  intimation  that  either  is 
more  important,  more  ancient  or  more  causal  than 
the  other.  Each  not  only  moves  but  exists  in  virtue 
of  the  existence  of  the  other.  And  do  not  neglect  to 
notice  that  a  man  is  no  less  subject  to  the  law  than  is 
any  other  body. 

(&)  The  law  of  conservation  practically  implies 
transformation  coextensively  with  conservation.  It 
would  be  meaningless  without  transformation.  Evo- 
lution, taken  in  the  most  general  sense,  is  but  another 
form  of  statement  of  the  laws  of  transformation  and 
conservation.  Gravitation  is  a  universal  law  of  sus- 


Know  Thyself  41 

tentation  for  bodies;  while  transformation  is  a  uni- 
versal law  of  the  origin  of  bodies. 

(8)  The  dependence  of  living  beings  on  chemical 
substances  is  only  a  special  case  of  the  general  law  of 
transformation  and  conservation;  but  the  discovery  of 
it  merits  inclusion  in  our  list  of  science's  prime  achieve- 
ments because  of  its  great  importance  to  the  problem 
of  man's  dependence  upon  nature. 

(4)  Concerning  the  origin  of  individuals  and  spe- 
cies, the  transformations  involved  are  of  two  radically 
different   sorts.      First,   there   is   the   sort   known   as 
organic  evolution,  which  does  not  consist  in  a  literal 
transformation  of  parent  into  offspring,  that  is,  in  a 
changing  over  of  parent  into  offspring  without  loss  of 
weight  as  one  physical  or  chemical  body  changes  into 
another,  but  rather  in  a  growth  of  the  derived  indi- 
vidual or  species  from  a  small  portion  of  the  parent. 
And  second,  this  growth  is  accomplished  by  the  trans- 
formation   of    foreign    substances    into    the    growing 
organism  through  the  nutritive  process. 

( 5 )  The  far-reaching  facts  of  what  I  have  called  in- 
dividual specificity  among  organisms  have  only  lately 
come  clearly  to  light,  and  even  yet  their  significance  is 
but  vaguely  seen.    In  the  middle  and  later  years  of  last 
century,    biologists    talked    much    about    Protoplasm, 
written  with  a  capital  P,  the  assumption  being  that 
there  is  one  simple  substance  common  to  all  life.     But 
the  capital  P  has  gradually  disappeared  from  scientific 
writing,  for  we  are  learning  that  each  species  and  indi- 


42  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

vidual  has  its  own  particular  protoplasm.  Similarly 
the  notion  was  formerly  prevalent  that  germ  cells  of 
animals  are  practically  alike.  But  closer  scrutiny  has 
revealed  the  fallacy  of  this  idea.  We  now  know  that 
the  germs  of  different  organisms  are  in  their  funda- 
mentals as  different  from  one  another  as  are  the  full- 
grown  organisms ;  and  we  view  the  egg  from  which  an 
individual  animal  grows  as  that  individual  in  the  one- 
celled  stage  of  its  life.  Do  you  not  perceive  something 
of  the  important  difference  of  viewpoint  here  ?  If  from 
the  simplest  and  earliest  stage  of  its  existence,  each  in- 
dividual is  to  some  extent  different  from  every  other,  it 
is  so  far  self-responsible  for  its  own  future  development 
and  activity.  Growing  at  the  expense  of  the  few  inor- 
ganic substances  which  are  the  common  bounty  of  all  liv- 
ing beings,  it  and  it  alone  must  have  the  ability  to  trans- 
form the  common  substances  into  its  own  special  sub- 
stances. Each  organism  is  indeed  a  chemico-physical 
machine,  if  one  chooses  so  to  call  it,  but  it  is  a  par- 
ticular machine — in  deepest  meaning  a  self — for  it  has 
an  essential  part  in  its  own  making  and  in  the  preser- 
vation of  its  own  identity.  The  .supreme  significance 
of  modern  biology  to  philosophy  is  the  establishment 
of  both  the  inviolability  of  the  individual  and  the  in- 
terdependencies  within  and  among  individuals  as  never 
before  have  these  truths  been  established. 

(6)  Another  set  of  facts  which  science  has  only 
recently  brought  home  to  us  is  the  universality  in  the 
human  species,  however  low  in  culture  racially  or 


Know  Thyself  43 

individually,  of  at  least  the  rudiments  of  all  those 
attributes  which  characterize  the  highest  of  the  spe- 
cies. Although  increase  of  information  in  one  quarter 
has  continually  strengthened  belief  in  the  origin  of  man 
from  some  lower  animal,  accumulation  of  knowledge  in 
another  quarter  has  completely  annihilated  belief  that 
there  is  on  earth  now  or  for  millenniums  has  been  a 
being  even  approximately  transitional  between  man 
and  beast.  All  the  races  whose  culture  we  know  any- 
thing positive  about  are  indubitably  men.  The  exist- 
ence of  highly  elaborated  language,  and  of  at  least  the 
beginnings  of  social  institutions  and  laws,  poetry, 
delineative  art,  religion,  and  reasoning  about  nature, 
among  all  people  to  which  science  has  had  access,  has 
put  a  quietus  forever  on  the  old  notion  that  certain 
primitive  races  are  "hardly  human,"  are  "little,  if  at 
all,  above  the  beasts  of  the  field,"  are  "without  souls." 
A  fact  the  significance  of  which  seems  not  to  have 
been  dwelt  upon  by  writers  on  morals  is  that  anthro- 
pologists who  study  primitive  races  long  and  closely 
in  their  homes,  always,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  come 
to  have  a  much  higher  regard  for  these  races  than 
chance  and  superficial  acquaintance  suggest.  And 
frequently  this  regard  ripens  into  genuine  esteem,  even 
affection.  Inquiry  into  this  matter  ought  to  yield 
interesting  results.  Is  the  affection  which  grows  up 
between  the  investigator  and  the  savage  investigated 
merely  that  which  subsists  between  the  owner  of  a  pet 
dog  or  cat  or  horse  and  his  chattel,  or  is  it  more  akin 


44  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

to  the  affection  of  friend  for  friend?  Which  cares 
more  genuinely  for  nature  people,  the  missionary  who 
lives  among  them  to  save  them  for  a  future  world,  or 
the  scientist  who  lives  with  them  in  order  that  he  may 
know  them?  Is  the  missionary  ever  really  successful 
in  his  mission  of  soul-saving  until  he  comes  to  have  a 
genuine  interest  in  his  people  as  physical  beings — a 
genuine  solicitude  for  their  physical  as  well  as  for 
their  spiritual  welfare? 

I  suspect  that  some  of  the  strongest  practical  evi- 
dence in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of  man 
may  be  found  in  the  intelligent  affection  which  grows 
up  between  highly  cultured  Caucasians  who  live  long 
and  intimately  among  primitive  peoples  for  the  pur- 
pose of  knowing  them  and  helping  them. 

One  of  the  most  significant  things  about  the  human- 
ness  of  nature  peoples  is  the  seeming  coincidence  of  the 
main  categories  of  human  faculty.  There  appears  to 
be  no  observational  evidence  that  some  one  or  a  few 
of  these  attributes  are  more  primitive  than  all  the 
others  and  gave  birth  to  the  others.  There  is,  for 
example,  no  proof  that  rationality  preceded  and  pro- 
duced the  esthetic,  the  social  and  the  religious  instincts ; 
or  per  contra.  It  seems  as  though  all  these  must  have 
emerged  together  or  nearly  so,  and  that  they  must 
have  always  been  closely  interlocked  and  interde- 
pendent. 

The  evidence  as  to  the  exact  manner  of  man's  origin 
contains  much  that  is  conflicting  and  exceedingly  puz- 


Know  Thyself  45 

zling.  The  situation  is  certainly  one  in  which  Pros- 
pero's  advice  to  Alonzo  should  be  heeded.  It  calls  for 
careful,  cheerful  search  for  what  is  most  probable 
rather  than  for  dogged  defence  of  some  theory  held  as 
though  it  were  absolute  and  sufficient  truth. 

Does  this  meager  narrative  of  the  achievements  of 
science  which  bear  on  the  problem  of  man's  nature  and 
his  place  in  nature  fail  to  convince  you  that  science 
has  something  basal  and  indispensable  to  contribute  to 
man's  understanding  of  himself?  Is  there  any  ques- 
tion that  the  injunction  of  old  should  have  a  promi- 
nent place  in  the  temples  of  science  as  well  as  in  those 
of  philosophy  and  religion  and  art? 

What  bearing  has  the  argument  presented  on  the 
transcendent  question  of  how  men  and  nations  should 
treat  one  another — should  behave  toward  one  another? 
Among  the  teachings  about  the  nature  of  morality 
that  have  been  potent  in  the  history  of  mankind,  there 
is  one  which  says  that  the  world  itself  is  a  moral  order 
— that  all  things  work  together  for  good  whether  you 
love  the  Lord  or  not.  I  hope  the  reader  will  see  that 
the  conceptions  here  sketched  resemble  this  teaching 
more  than  any  other  with  which  he  is  familiar.  But  I 
hope  he  will  see  also  wherein  they  differ  from  it.  That 
nature  is  moral  I  do  not  contend — I  do  not  believe.  So 
much  destruction  and  suffering  and  death  come  upon 
man  through  flood,  tornado,  earthquake,  pestilence  and 
the  rest,  as  to  make  this  personified  conception  of 
nature  untenable.  What  I  do  say  is  that  man  as 


46  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

biology  knows  him,  no  less  than  as  theology  and  philos- 
ophy know  him,  is  a  moral  being.  Notice  I  do  not  say 
he  is  necessarily  a  good  being.  What  I  mean  is  that 
he  is  a  being  who  consciously  estimates  his  reciprocal' 
acts  with  his  fellow's  as  good  or  bad  and  by  this  is 
moral.  But  since  nature  produces  and  sustains  man, 
it  must  be  so  constituted  that  it  can  produce  and  sus- 
tain moral  beings.  I  am  judging  nature  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  laws  of  natural  production,  as 
observational  knowledge  finds  them.  An  essential  ele- 
ment in  the  law  of  organic  genesis  is  that  the  germ 
plus  its  environment  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
completed  organism.  And  this  law  is  but  a  special 
case  of  the  general  law  that  everything  found  in  an 
effect  is  implicit  in  its  causes.  This  commonplace  is 
brought  forward  to  use  as  a  stepping  stone  to  what  is 
not  a  commonplace:  Examining  nature  broadly  as  we 
have  tried  to,  we  are  able  to  see  something  of  what 
there  is  in  her  constitution  that  enables  her  to  produce 
moral  beings.  It  is  exactly  that  fundamental  origina- 
tive and  sustentative  interdependence  among  the  parts, 
that  basal  integratedness  of  nature  upon  which  we  have 
discoursed,  that  endows  her  with  this  sort  of  creative 
power. 

To  summarize :  Scrutiny  of  the  human  species  in  the 
manner  that  descriptive  biology  scrutinizes  any  and 
all  species,  discovers  this  species  to  have  certain  attri- 
butes that  are  very  exceptional  considering  the  ani- 
mate world  as  a  whole — desire  for  companionship, 


Know  Thyself  47 

sympathy  with  the  unfortunate  and  the  fortunate,  a 
sense  of  dependence  upon  and  obligation  to  others,  and 
love  of  kindred  and  non-kindred.  The  possession  of 
these  attributes  marks  the  species  as  not  merely  gre- 
garious, but  in  the  deepest  sense  social.  Out  of  the 
observation  and  personal  experience  of  these  attributes 
in  their  best  development  there  has  grown  the  concep- 
tion that  the  members  of  the  species  constitute  a 
brotherhood.  And  notice  that  the  fact  that  each  of 
these  attributes  has  its  antithesis,  does  not  in  the  least 
affect  the  essential  point  before  us.  Day  is  no  less 
day  because  there  is  also  night.  The  social  feelings  one 
possesses  are  none  the  less  positive  because  of  unsocial 
feelings  one  may  also  possess.  Love  is  none  the  less 
love  because  hate  exists. 

The  historic  doctrine  of  human  brotherhood  grew 
out  of  these  germinal  moral  feelings  of  man.  Specu- 
lation as  to  the  origin  and  sanction  of  these  feelings 
has  usually  been  sought,  especially  in  the  western 
world,  beyond  nature.  But  in  these  later  centuries 
comes  science  to  demonstrate  the  physical  counterpart 
of  the  spiritual  doctrine  of  brotherhood. 

And  now  the  final  word:  If  ever  we  mortals  attain 
to  true  self-wisdom,  wisdom  that  is  not  alone  saving 
but  creative  of  Self,  we  shall  win  it  by  devoutly  seeking 
in  the  temples  of  Religion,  Art,  and  Science  alter- 
nately. No  man  can  become  wise  unto  eternal  life  by 
worshipping  in  one  kind  of  temple  only. 

And  when  such  wisdom  shall  be  reached  each  Self 


48  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

will  have  become  conscious  that  he  himself  is  because 
other  Selves  are.  Each  Self  will  know  that  however 
much  of  struggle  ending  in  triumph  or  defeat,  how- 
ever much  of  ambition,  mean  or  noble,  enter  into  the 
great  drama  of  human  life,  it  is  all  only  a  part  of  the 
stupendous  totality  of  things,  the  supreme  glory  of 
which  is,  so  far  as  positive  knowledge  can  reach,  that 
it  has  produced  and  is  producing  man  not  only  at  his 
worst,  but  also  at  his  best. 


THE  HIGHER  USEFULNESS  OF  SCIENCE* 

I.  The  Moral  Accountability  of  Science 

IT  appears  that  science  must  have  to  face  the  charge 
of  being  positively  hostile  to  man's  highest  wel- 
fare. While  the  great  war  is  the  prime  immediate 
incitement  to  the  charge,  not  the  war  alone  but  what 
may  be  called  the  Great  Western  Conflict,  one  aspect 
of  which  is  the  war,  is  the  real  ground  of  the  indict- 
ment. Another  aspect  of  the  conflict,  the  economic,  is 
probably  affecting  human  life  more  profoundly  on  the 
whole  than  is  the  military  aspect.  So  greatly  has  the 
economic  conflict,  especially  the  labor-versus-capital 
part  of  it,  gained  in  intensity  of  late  years  that  now, 
when  the  military  conflict  is  superposed  upon  the 

*  A  paper,  somewhat  modified,  read  to  a  seminar  of  research 
men,  the  staff  of  the  Citrus  Experiment  Station,  Department  of 
Agriculture,  University  of  California,  at  Riverside,  California, 
December  12,  1916. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  a  general  treatment  of  some  scientific 
subject  of  general  human  interest  was  specially  requested.  This 
is  notable  as  evidence  that  scientific  specialists  are  not,  after  all, 
so  narrow  in  their  interests  as  they  are  often  reputed  to  be.  In- 
deed I  am  quite  sure  a  change  is  coming  over  the  face  of  science 
in  this  regard. 

The  paper  has  not  been  published  before. 

49 


50         ,      The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

economic,  many  minds  are  being  quickened  by  the 
appalling  disasters  that  are  befalling  mankind  from 
both  directions,  and  searching  inquiry  as  to  what  it  all 
means — as  to  causes  and  possible  remedies — is  the 
order  of  the  day. 

These  inquiries  do  not  fail  to  notice  that  science  is 
about  the  most  potent  instrumentality  being  used  in 
both  aspects  of  the  conflict.  But  since  science  is  not  a 
mere  lifeless  machine  or  machine  product,  but  a  great 
department  of  human  endeavor,  it  is  inevitable  that  a 
measure  of  responsibility,  social  and  moral,  should  be 
attached  to  it  for  the  part  it  is  playing  in  the  condi- 
tions presented.  This  implication  of  responsibility 
comes  to  view  even  in  the  utterances  of  those  who,  from 
one  standpoint  or  another,  would  hold  that  science  as 
an  operating  force  is  something  quite  apart  from 
human  life.  Thus:  "Science  ...  is  neither  god  nor 
devil;  science,  by  itself,  has  power  neither  to  save  nor 
to  destroy.  But  we  are  learning  at  horrible  cost  the 
lesson  that  men  armed  with  science  can  destroy  in  a 
moment  human  life  and  happiness  and  beauty  that  sci- 
ence can  never  replace."  (R.  K.  Hack,  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  Sept.,  1916.) 

Of  course  science  "by  itself"  is  neither  god  nor  devil. 
It  is  not,  because  it  is  nothing  at  all  by  itself.  It  has 
no  existence  apart  from  the  intellects  and  wills  and 
hands  of  men.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  carry  through! 
the  notion  that  science  is  something  with  which  men 
can  be  armed,  as  they  can  be  with  swords  and  plows. 


Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  51 

So  much  more  fundamentally  is  science  identified  witK 
the  man  who  is  said  to  be  armed  with  it,  than  is  the 
club  or  gun  with  which  he  may  arm  himself,  that  if  for 
convenience  of  expression  we  represent  it  as  thus  de- 
tached, the  good  and  bad  which  we  impute  to  it  will  be 
quite  different  from  the  good  and  bad  of  a  club  or  a 
hoe.  If  science  is  personified,  the  goodness  or  the  bad- 
ness attributed  to  it  are  found,  sooner  or  later,  to 
assume  moral  aspects.  This  seems  to  me  a  truth  which 
scientific  men  have  not  sufficiently  appreciated.  Un- 
questionably one  of  the  supreme  virtues  of  science  is 
its  ability  to  be  impersonal  when  occasion  demands — 
to  view  facts  as  they  actually  are,  regardless  of  any- 
body's interests  or  wishes  or  feelings.  If  the  epidemic 
is  diagnosed  as  bubonic  plague,  as  such  it  must  be  ac- 
cepted and  preventive  and  remedial  measures  shaped 
accordingly.  But  there  is  a  limit  beyond  which  science 
can  no  longer  operate  with  this  impersonal  detach- 
ment. Situations  are  sure  to  arise  wherein  it  will  be 
held  to  moral  accountability.  It  is  in  the  same  boat 
with  ah1  the  other  major  interests  and  activities  of 
man.  No  human  good  whatever  is  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  transformation  into  evil.  Love  may  be  so 
permeated  with  selfishness  and  jealousy  as  to  make  of 
it  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing.  Some  of  the  darkest 
chapters  of  human  history  are  thus  dark  because  of  the 
passage  of  religion  over  into  superstition  and  cruelty. 
Science  is  still  too  young,  ethnologically  speaking,  to 
have  quite  found  its  place  in  the  enormous  complexity 


52  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

of  civilized  society,  and  one  of  the  questions  not  yet 
cleared  up  is  that  of  how  far  it  can  push  certain  of  its 
socially  good  activities  before  they  become  socially  bad 
activities.  Science  has  yet  to  take  to  heart  the  great 
moral  injunction  about  running  good  things  into  the 
ground.  Indeed,  an  exceedingly  important  aspect  of 
the  socialization  of  all  sorts  of  activity  is  the  problem 
of  recognizing  when  service  passes  over  into  disservice. 
The  world  war  now  raging  is  apparently  going  to 
compel  a  very  searching  examination  of  the  relation 
of  science  to  the  social  and  moral  life  of  man.  The 
problem  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  have  two  quite  dis- 
tinct aspects.  One  of  these  will  be  a  series  of  questions 
as  to  how  far  science  may  push  its  activities  and  appli- 
cations in  particular  directions  with  good  results  to 
the  community  at  large;  or,  stating  the  matter  from 
the  other  direction,  how  far  such  activities  may  go 
before  they  become  harmful  to  the  community.  Illus- 
trative questions  here  are:  How  far  may  medicine  and 
hygiene  advantageously  push  regulative  measures  in 
their  provinces?  Where  are  the  points  beyond  which 
their  efforts  would  become  first  inconvenient,  then  irri- 
tating, and  finally  obnoxious  and  unbearable?  How 
far  may  the  principle  of  specialization  in  the  study  of 
different  realms  of  nature  be  carried  before  the  isolat- 
ing tendencies  reach  the  point  where  the  specialist 
ceases  to  be  a  social  being  in  a  real  sense — where  the 
pathological  bacteriologist,  for  example,  or  the  elec- 
trical engineer,  is  no  longer  anything  significant,  even 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  53 

as  a  biologist  or  an  electrician  ?  Again,  and  finally  for 
illustrative  purposes,  how  far  may  science  go  in  aid  of 
war  before  it  will  bring  down  upon  itself  first  mild 
criticism  and  at  last  imprecation?  If  war  really  has 
become,  as  is  being  repeatedly  said,  an  affair  of  en- 
gineering and  chemistry,  and  if  its  destructiveness  and 
horror-production  should  pass  all  bounds,  is  it  not 
inevitable  that  engineering  and  chemistry  should  come 
to  be  looked  upon  as  enemies  of  mankind?  That  would 
surely  be  the  case  should  the  world  at  large  be  driven 
to  conclude  that  these  sciences  are  doing  more  harm 
than  good. 

The  other  aspect  of  the  general  problem  of  science 
in  its  relation  to  man's  social  and  moral  life,  is  that 
of  the  influence  certain  basal  ideas  of  science  have  on 
the  conceptions  and  beliefs  by  which  such  life  is  guided. 
To  illustrate,  how,  if  at  all,  has  the  abandonment  of 
the  geocentric  conception  of  the  universe  held  before 
Copernicus  and  Galileo,  affected  the  course  of  moral 
doctrine  through  the  centuries?  Would  any  even  half- 
thoughtful  person  contend  that  it  has  had  no  effect 
in  this  way?  Or,  coming  closer  to  our  own  time,  how 
if  at  all  has  the  modern  theory  of  organic  evolution 
affected  moral  ideas  and  moral  life?  Surely  no  one 
would  deny,  and  be  in  earnest  about  it,  that  the  effect 
in  this  case  has  been  prodigious.  To  mention  specifi- 
cally only  one  item,  who  does  not  know  that  the  catch 
phrase  "The  fittest  survive,  that  is  the  way  of  nature," 
taken  directly  from  biology,  has  been  used  as  a  salve 


54  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

for  sore  consciences  in  innumerable  deeds  of  injustice 
and  cruelty,  especially  in  the  business  world?  And  I 
would  insist  that  there  is  no  legitimate  rule  of  law  or 
reason  by  which  any  department  of  human  knowledge 
can  claim  immunity  from  moral  responsibility  for  the 
promulgation  of  any  doctrine  so  potent  in  its  influence 
on  human  conduct  as  has  been  that  of  natural  selection 
and  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

The  general  story  of  man's  knowledge  of  nature  and 
of  the  influence  of  that  knowledge  on  his  higher  life,  is 
written  in  type  so  large  and  language  so  simple  as  to 
make  it  seem  impossible  that  any  educated  person  could 
have  missed  reading  and  understanding  it.  But  again 
has  the  impossible  happened,  to  judge  from  utterances 
that  come  to  one's  ears  from  diverse  quarters.  It  is 
surprising  enough  to  hear  a  literary  man  of  the  emi- 
nence of  G.  K.  Chesterton  declare  that  science  is  "a 
thing  on  the  outskirts  of  human  life" — that  "it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  center  of  human  life  at  all." 
But  when  eminent  men  of  science  give  expression  to 
much  the  same  view  we  can  but  ask  in  amazement,  is  it 
then  possible  that  the  history  of  science  and  civiliza- 
tion, and  likewise  that  supreme  fruitage  of  scientific 
discovery,  the  universal  interdependency  among  the 
parts  of  nature,  have  left  the  intellects  and  imagina- 
tions of  such  men  wholly  untouched?  Never  shall  I 
forget  the  reply  an  eminent  biologist  once  told  me  he 
made  to  sociologists,  economists,  educators  and  so  on, 
when  they  ply  him  with  the  query  "what  has  biology  to 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  55 

say  about  our  problems?"  "Why,  thunderation,"  is 
the  way  he  said  he  answered,  "biology  has  nothing  to 
say  about  such  matters !"  The  fact  that  biology  should 
take  endless  pains  to  understand  the  behavior  of  sea 
anemones,  earth  worms,  crabs,  frogs,  crows,  mice,  and 
the  rest,  but  should  make  official  declaration  that  with 
the  behavior  of  one  species  alone,  man,  it  has  nothing  to 
do  except  as  to  how  his  strictly  physiological  and  some 
of  his  minor  psychological  activities  are  inflenced  by 
certain  experimentally  imposed  conditions,  would  seem 
about  the  climax  of  absurdity  to  anybody  whose  sci- 
entific specialization  had  not  been  in  its  larger  signifi- 
cance checkmated  by  sophistication. 

How  the  notion  that  the  most  distinctive  part  of 
human  life  lies  outside  the  province  of  biology,  should 
have  gained  lodgment  in  the  minds  of  many  biologists 
is  not  difficult  to  explain  once  one  attains  a  critical 
insight  into  the  course  of  biological  theory  during  the 
last  half  century.  But  that  we  must  pass  now. 

Almost  certainly  biological  science  will  have  to  share 
with  German  political  philosophy  in  the  condemnatory 
verdict  which  history  will  pass  upon  some  of  the  appli- 
cations to  human  affairs  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
doctrine  made  in  our  era.  This  does  not  mean  that 
science  ought  to  back  and  fill  in  promulgating  the 
truths  it  discovers,  from  humanitarian  considerations. 
But  the  promulgation  of  fully  demonstrated  truth  is 
one  thing  and  the  promulgation  of  half-proven  hypoth- 
eses is  quite  another.  It  is  only  in  the  case  of  such  of 


56  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

these  hypotheses  as  touch  human  life  injuriously  that 
moral  culpability  can  be  imputed  to  science.  But  in 
such  cases  this  imputation  would  be  perfectly  natural 
and  just,  since  as  already  pointed  out  science  is  only 
one  among  a  considerable  list  of  man's  major  interests, 
the  harmonious  interaction  among  which,  and  their 
working  to  a  common  end,  is  the  very  essence  of  good 
morals. 

II.  How  Science  May  Meet  Its  Moral  Obligations 

The  main  task  of  this  paper  is  that  of  trying  to 
bring  into  clear  light  what  there  is  within  the  body  of 
science  itself  that  may  be  made  to  work  positively  and 
mightily  for  the  health  and  strength  and  growth  of  the 
whole  of  human  life  under  civilization. 

Before  entering  upon  the  task  proper  it  will  be  well 
to  have  a  foretaste  of  its  character.  In  the  first  place, 
let  us  remind  ourselves  of  the  intimate  way  men's  ideas 
about  themselves,  their  estimates  of  their  own  worth 
and  the  worth  of  others,  their  personal  conduct,  and 
their  treatment  of  other  people,  especially  those  of 
their  own  blood  kin,  and  of  strangers  of  alien  race, 
have  always  been  bound  up  with  their  beliefs  and  teach- 
ings about  their  own  origin.  To  illustrate,  think  of 
the  enormous  part  the  doctrines  of  the  Creation,  the 
Fall  and  the  Redemption  of  man  has  had  in  the  history 
of  Christian  civilization!  Keeping  in  mind  the  un- 
doubted fact  that  man's  theories  of  his  own  origin  and 


Tine  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  57 

the  origin  of  the  world  have  always  held  the  most  vital 
relation  to  religion  and  ethics,  ought  to  give  the  prob- 
lems involved  a  keener,  more  personal  interest  than  they 
otherwise  would  have,  and  so  make  tolerable  phases  of 
their  discussion  which  but  for  such  interest  might  seem 
too  recondite  and  severe  to  be  worth  while. 

The  problem  before  us  may  be  characterized  as  one 
which  will  be  a  search  after  the  truth  and  also  the  error 
there  is  in  such  a  conception  as  that  of  the  "creative 
evolution"  of  Bergson.  Being  a  little  more  explicit, 
the  problem  is  to  show  that  there  is  in  nature  an  urge, 
a  potency  of  much  such  operative  character  as  that 
assumed  by  Bergson,  but  that  it  is  not  something  out- 
side of  or  behind  or  above  or  antecedent  to  matter,  but 
is  a  coincident  and  essential  part  of  the  system  of  na- 
ture as  this  actually  presents  itself  to  our  senses  and 
our  intellects. 

Or,  stating  the  problem  from  a  somewhat  different 
angle,  it  is  to  find  both  the  truth  and  the  error  corre- 
sponding to  the  Bergsonian  doctrine,  to  the  end  that 
we  may  benefit  by  the  appeal  an  idea  like  that  of  Crea- 
tive Evolution  makes  to  great  numbers  of  persons,  but 
may  avoid  the  inadequacy  and  unsatisfactoriness  of 
such  a  theory  as  that  of  Bergson's  elcm  vital,  or  as 
that  of  his  peculiar  kind  of  intuitionalism.  No  such 
vast  and  splendid  body  of  natural  knowledge  as  we 
actually  have  would  ever  be  built  up,  I  am  quite  sure, 
under  the  stimulus  and  guidance  of  such  conceptions 
of  nature  and  of  scientific  knowledge. 


58  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

The  general  character  of  our  task  may  be  thus  indi- 
cated, but  this  does  not  mean  that  we  are  plunging  into 
a  discussion  of  Bergson's  philosophy.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  we  shall  have  very  little  to  say  directly  about 
Bergson  and  his  teachings.  What  the  outcome  of  our 
discussion  will  be  may  be  indicated  by  this  formal  state- 
ment: The  doctrines  of  human  brotherhood  and  of  the 
golden  rule,  which  in  essence  have  marked  flood  tide  of 
ethical  aspiration  with  all  the  most  advanced  peoples 
of  the  earth,  find  at  least  as  much  sanction  in  the  data 
of  biology,  if  all  these  data  be  treated  with  logical 
consistency,  as  have  the  doctrines  of  mechanistic  deter- 
minism and  survival  of  the  fittest. 

Science,  with  biology  in  the  lead,  has  advanced  to 
the  point  of  having  produced  overwhelming  evidence 
that  man  in  the  whole  scope  of  his  being,  is  part  of 
nature.  This  advance  has  given  rise  to  a  great  ques- 
tion, not  yet  answered;  that,  namely,  as  to  what  the 
constitution  of  nature  must  be  because  man  is  a  part 
of  it.  An  answer  of  this  question  is,  I  think,  one  of  the 
supreme  needs  of  our  era;  and  a  point  upon  which 
emphasis  should  be  laid  is  that  a  large  part  in  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  must  be  played  by  science  if  the  so- 
lution is  ever  to  be  reached.  I  must  guard  against  being 
misunderstood  here.  My  statement  that  science  must 
play  a  large  part  in  solving  the  problem  should  not  be 
taken  to  imply  that  according  to  my  view  science  can  do 
the  whole  business.  I  am  decidedly  not  one  of  those 
who  regard  science  as  everything.  What  I  mean  is 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  59 

that  to  science  there  falls  a  very  definite,  very  positive 
share  in  solving  the  problem,  but  that  to  other  depart- 
ments of  human  interest  and  effort  fall  other  shares. 
If  you  would  have  me  specific  as  to  other  departments 
I  should  mention,  by  way  of  illustration  rather  than  by 
way  of  full  enumeration,  religion  and  art,  selecting 
these  not  so  much  for  their  unique  importance  as  for 
their  fundamental  distinctness  from  science. 

An  effort  must  now  be  made  to  clarify  our  statement 
of  the  problem.  What  is  the  meaning  of  our  words 
about  determining  the  constitution  of  nature  from 
the  fact  that  man  is  a  part  of  nature?  Perhaps  an 
illustration  from  a  far  simpler  realm  than  that  of 
human  beings  will  help.  "A  whole  is  greater  than  any 
of  its  parts."  The  fact  that  this  saying  contains 
some  truth  that  is  self-evident  seems  to  deter  us  from 
recognizing  that  it  contains  other  truth  not  self-evi- 
dent when  the  particular  "whole"  referred  to  is  a  nat- 
ural object.  The  earth  is  greater  than  the  American 
Continent  or  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  a  deeper  sense  than 
merely  that  these  are  only  two  among  many  parts  of 
the  earth.  The  earth's  superiority  to  these  is  not 
merely  quantitative;  it  is  generative  as  well.  The 
American  Continent  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  owe  their 
existence  to  the  earth.  Except  for  the  interaction  of 
various  intra-  and  inter-planetary  forces  these  lands 
and  waters  could  not  have  come  into  being. 

An  exceedingly  pervasive  and  harmful  fallacy  in  rea- 
soning about  natural  genesis  is  that  it  has  made  as- 


60  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

sumptions  and  used  language  which  imply  that  wholes 
are  produced  by  the  coming  together  of  the  previously 
existent  completed  parts,  rather  than  by  the  formation 
of  these  parts  coincidentally  and  coordinately  with  the 
formation  of  other  parts  and  of  the  whole.  The  earth 
is  not  an  aggregation  of  continents,  oceans,  et  cetera, 
in  the  sense  that  these  existed  before  the  earth  existed 
and  were  then  brought  together,  as  to  the  formation  of 
a  flock,  in  the  meaning  of  the  Latin  ancestor  of  the  word 
"aggregation."  I  mention  here,  somewhat  incidentally 
but  yet  quite  relevantly  to  our  general  thesis,  that  the 
cell  theory  in  biology  is  pickled  through  with  this 
fallacy.  It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  get  a  falser 
view  of  a  multicellular  organism  than  to  conceive  it  as 
an  aggregation  of  cells,  using  "aggregation"  in  its 
etymological  or  even  its  common  meaning.  A  develop- 
ing embryo  is  a  living  whole  resolvmg  itself  into  ceUs, 
rather  than  a  mass  of  cells  coming  together,  or  aggre- 
gating. 

Returning  now  to  our  illustration,  it  remains  to 
notice  that  the  American  Continent  and  the  Pacific 
Ocean  are  two  indubitable  proofs  of  what  generative 
capacities  the  earth  possessed  before  ever  these  partic- 
ular parts  existed. 

If,  now,  man  really  is  a  part  of  nature  as  genuinely 
as  the  Pacific  Ocean  is  a  part  of  the  earth,  then  man, 
with  his  mind  as  well  as  his  body,  must  have  been 
implicit  in  nature  before  ever  actual  man  existed.  The 
existence  of  man's  mind  and  the  rest  of  his  spiritual 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  61 

being  is  proof  positive  that  nature  is  capable  of  pro- 
ducing mental  and  moral  beings,  if  we  are  right  in  our 
conclusion  that  man  is  a  part  of  nature.  In  other 
words,  mentality  and  spirituality  and  morality  are 
among  the  productive  capabilities  of  nature. 

I  believe  that  science  must  come  to  see  that  it  has 
greatly  curtailed  its  own  power  for  good  to  man  on 
the  higher  side  of  his  being,  by  having  fallen  victim  to 
essentially  the  same  erroneous  mode  of  reasoning  about 
genesis  in  nature  that  seemingly  most  theology,  cer- 
tainly Christian  theology,  fell  into  centuries  ago. 
That  error  consists  in  the  supposition  that  judgments 
about  the  attributes  and  the  value  of  things  objectively 
presented  to  us,  are  more  dependent  on  knowledge  of 
the  origin  of  those  objects  than  they  really  are,  and 
that  we  may  acquire  a  finality  of  such  knowledge  which 
as  a  matter  of  fact  we  never  do  and  perhaps  never  shall 
acquire.  It  is  highly  significant  that  in  interpreting 
organic  beings,  modern  biology  should  cling  to  its 
hypotheses  of  the  production  of  the  organic  from  the 
inorganic,  and  of  natural  selection  as  the  cause  of  evo- 
lution, hardly  less  dogmatically  than  Christian  cos- 
mography clung  and  still  clings  to  its  hypothesis  of 
the  origin  of  the  world  and  of  man  by  divine  fiat. 

And  equally  significant  is  it  that  opinions  held  about 
the  character,  and  estimates  made  of  the  worth  of  the 
world  and  of  man  as  these  actually  exist,  have  been 
influenced  in  almost  equal  degree  by  the  dogmas  of 
origination  held  by  Christian  theology  and  by  modern 


62  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

science.  Christianity's  working  hypothesis  of  the 
origin  of  man  makes  him  a  fallen  angel.  Very  many 
persons  suppose  the  fundamental  conception  of  that 
splendidly  terrible  story  Paradise  Lost  has  been 
eliminated  from  modern  Christianity.  But  it  has  not. 
The  Doctrine  of  the  Fall  comes  under  the  Yes  or  No 
form  of  logic.  Square  is  absolutely  not  round;  hence 
it  is  utter  folly  to  try  to  make  it  so. 

But  on  the  other  hand  the  corresponding  hypothesis 
of  modern  science  makes  man  an  untransformed  brute. 
Though  he  possesses  much  more  wit  than  his  fellows, 
this  hypothesis  says,  he  is  yet  in  all  essentials  a  brute. 
Do  not  miss  the  main  purpose  for  which  this  matter 
is  brought  up  here.  It  is  not  to  pass  upon  the  truth  or 
untruth  of  either,  hypothesis,  nor  for  weighing  the  in- 
fluence each  has  had  on  human  life  and  conduct,  but 
for  the  purpose  of  calling  attention  to  the  indubitable 
fact  that  neither  hypothesis  rests  primarily  on  induc- 
tive research  upon  the  human  species  in  the  totality  of 
its  manifestations,  but  rather  on  evidence  and  consid- 
erations drawn  from  various  more  or  less  secondary 
and  remote  sources.  And  it  may  be  affirmed,  though 
the  affirmation  can  be  made  only  somewhat  dogmat- 
ically now,  that  the  hypotheses  on  both  sides  contain 
many  elements  which  from  the  nature  of  the  case  are 
unprovable.  Due  attention  to  all  the  conditions  makes 
it  appear  certain  that  exactly  when  and  where  and  how 
man  originated  we  not  only  do  not  know,  but  in  all 
likelihood  never  shall  know.  And  even  more  certain 


Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  63 

does  it  appear  that  the  conceptions  of  man  engendered 
by  both  these  hypotheses  are  hardly  better  than  carica- 
tures of  what  the  best  archeological,  anthropological, 
historical  and  psychological  investigations  prove  man 
actually  to  be.  If  ever  a  doctrine  of  man  based  on  the 
facts,  all  of  them,  of  actual  man  rather  than  on  hy- 
potheses of  the  origin  of  man,  is  clearly  formulated,  it 
will  be  something  very  different  from  the  doctrines 
either  of  theology  or  of  science,  as  science  has  been  up 
to  this  time. 

But  now  comes  the  important  question:  Would  an 
adequate  doctrine  of  man  ignore  wholly  the  question 
of  his  origin?  Would  it  refuse  to  make  any  pro- 
nouncement on  this  question?  By  no  means.  A  very 
definite  pronouncement  on  man's  origin  would  be  one 
of  the  emphatic  and  most  potent  elements  of  such  a 
doctrine.  And  this  brings  us  back  to  the  statements 
about  determining  what  nature  is  because  man  is  a 
part  of  it,  and  about  the  superiority  of  a  natural  whole 
over  any  of  its  parts  being  generative  as  well  as  quan- 
titative. 

The  generative  processes  of  nature  seem  to  be  every- 
where and  always  such  as  to  enable  us  to  be  far  more 
certain  that  a  particular  generator,  taken  as  a  whole, 
produced  its  particular  offspring  than  we  can  be  as  to 
exactly  what  part  each  constituent  of  the  generator 
takes  in  the  productive  process,  and  as  to  exactly  how 
the  process  goes  on.  This  truth  is  so  vital  and  failure 
to  grasp  it  firmly  has  led  to  so  much  confused  thinking 


64  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

and  futile  effort  in  so  many  quarters,  that  illustrations 
of  it  drawn  from  several  provinces  of  nature  will  be 
profitable. 

For  the  first  illustration  the  field  of  chemistry  may 
be  drawn  upon,  and  the  production  of  water  will  serve 
our  purpose  well.  First  of  all,  let  us  remind  ourselves 
of  the  fact  that  the  names  Oxygen  and  Hydrogen 
stand  as  perpetual  warnings  against  the  very  fallacies 
we  are  here  concerned  with.  Oxygen  is  not  the  acid 
producer,  as  it  was  earlier  believed  to  be,  but  rather, 
since  it  is  now  common  knowledge  that  the  attribute 
of  acidity  is  often  produced  without  oxygen,  we  recog- 
nize that  oxygen  is  only  one  factor  in  the  acid-produc- 
tion of  acid  compounds  that  contain  oxygen.  And 
similarly  with  hydrogen.  Chemists  no  longer  regard 
it  as  the  cause  and  explanation  of  water  even  though 
water  never  exists  without  it.  Rather  it  is  held  to  be 
an  indispensable  factor  in  the  production  of  water, 
oxygen  being  another  equally  indispensable  factor. 
And  these  two  factors  in  the  generation  of  water  are 
also  substantive  elements  in  the  composition  of  water. 
And  in  the  generation  of  water  there  is  necessary  a 
third  factor  which  plays  the  part  of  a  catalyzer. 

Now,  the  mode  of  reasoning  about  water-production 
presents  two  or  three  points  of  prime  importance  for 
our  argument.  One  of  these  is  the  fact  that  modern 
chemistry  makes  no  attempt,  as  I  understand,  to  dis- 
tribute the  attributes  of  water  among  the  generating 
factors  and  constituents  of  water.  For  example,  it 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  65 

does  not  try  to  refer  the  refractive  index  of  water  to 
hydrogen,  or  some  "determiner"  in  hydrogen,  and  the 
specific  gravity  to  oxygen.  On  the  contrary,  the  con- 
ception is,  according  to  my  understanding,  that  the 
refractive  index  and  every  other  attribute  of  water  is 
the  joint  product  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  acting  upon 
each  other,  or  possibly  certain  attributes  of  oxygen 
and  certain  attributes  of  hydrogen  so  acting.  In  other 
words,  chemical  generation  is  conceived  as  a  process 
of  genuine  interaction  among  the  parts  of  the  generat- 
ing mass  or  whole,  and  not  as  a  process  in  which  indi- 
vidual atoms  or  electrons,  acting  independently,  pro- 
duce the  new  bodies.  The  process  is  conceived  as  a 
general  interaction  among,  rather  than  as  the  isolated 
action  of,  the  elements  or  factors  of  the  generator. 

Another  important  thing  about  the  rationale  of  the 
process  is  that  this  generalized  or  pervasive  action, 
when  sufficiently  examined,  leaves  no  room  for  doubt 
or  vagueness  of  thought,  or  appeal  to  wholly  outside 
forces  and  factors,  for  the  reason  that  quantitative 
relations  of  some  sort  can  always  be  discovered  be- 
tween the  total  situation  presented  by  the  generator 
and  the  total  situation  presented  by  the  offspring  or 
product ;  and  for  the  additional  reason  that  the  process 
readily  repeats  itself  time  after  time  if  the  totality  of 
conditions  are  present.  In  other  words  the  real  ground 
of  certitude  about  chemical  generation  is  always  some- 
where short  of  the  ultimate  elements  and  forces  con- 
cerned in  the  operation.  Chemists  were  just  as  certain 


66  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

of  the  adequacy  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  to  produce 
water  as  soon  as  the  quantitative  relation  between 
water  and  its  constituents  was  definitely  established 
a  century  ago,  as  are  present-day  chemists  with  their 
much  greater  knowledge  of  the  atomic  and  electronic 
structure  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen. 

And  finally,  of  supreme  importance  for  us  is  the  fact 
that  the  product,  water,  is  a  revelation  of  some  of  the 
latent  capacities  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen.  We  are 
certain  that  these  two  substances,  operating  on  each 
other,  are  able  to  give  origin  to  this  third  substance. 
But  how  are  we  certain  of  this?  Entirely  because 
water  has  been  observed,  times  without  number,  to  come 
forth  from  the  two  gases ;  and  similarly  the  gases  have 
been  observed  to  come  forth  from  water.  Could  we 
imagine  a  chemist  who  never  saw  or  heard  of  water  or 
any  of  the  substances  chemically  similar  to  it,  we  may 
be  sure  a  whole  lifetime  of  study  of  oxygen  and  hydro- 
gen would  not  enable  him  to  foresee  the  production  of 
water  by  their  union. 

Take  another  simple  case  of  genesis,  this  time  from 
the  field  of  physics,  the  production  of  so-called  artifi- 
cial magnets.  We  will  note  two  ways  in  which  such 
magnets  are  produced,  namely,  by  breaking  into  two 
or  more  pieces  a  magnetized  steel  bar,  each  piece  be- 
coming a  magnet,  and  by  making  an  alloy  of  copper, 
aluminum  and  manganese  (Heusler's  alloy).  The 
molecular  theory  of  magnetism  is  apparently  generally 
accepted  by  physicists  as  an  explanation  of  magnetic 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  67 

phenomena.  The  bar  magnet  is  only  the  summation 
of  its  magnetized  molecules.  The  bar  is  magnetic  be- 
cause its  constituent  molecules  are  magnetic.  That 
seems  to  be,  in  essence,  the  usual  mode  of  reasoning 
about  the  phenomenon.  Let  us  examine  it  somewhat 
critically.  We  notice  first  of  all  that  the  molecular 
conception  of  magnetism  is  always  spoken  of  either  as 
an  hypothesis,  or,  when  the  highest  level  of  assurance 
is  reached,  as  a  theory.  No  authority  whom  I  have 
consulted  puts  the  magnetized  molecules  on  the  same 
plane  of  certitude  upon  which  he  puts  the  magnetized 
body.  The  base  of  reference  in  all  testing  of  the 
theory  is  the  magnet  itself.  That  is  what  all  experi- 
mentalists and  mathematicians  come  back  to  finally 
for  deciding  whether  or  not  a  particular  aspect  of  the 
hypothesis  is  valid. 

Reflect  now  on  just  what  the  molecular  theory  of 
magnetism  is.  It  supposes  that  magnetizable  sub- 
stances are  composed  of  molecules  each  one  of  which 
is  a  potential  magnet  whose  axes  of  force  point  in  all 
directions,  and  that  the  conversion  of  such  a  substance 
into  the  magnetic  state  consists  in  so  shifting  the 
molecular  axes  that  they  no  longer  neutralize  one  an- 
other by  pointing  in  all  directions,  but  point  only  to 
the  north  and  south  poles.  See  what  this  really  means. 
It  means  that  the  magnetizable  body  is  made  up  of 
minute  particles  each  one  of  which,  though  not  in  reality 
a  magnet,  is  so  constituted  that  it  can  become  one. 
But  under  what  conditions  is  this  assumed  ability  of 


68  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

the  molecules  to  become  magnets  actually  realized? 
Why,  under  the  conditions  imposed  not  by  the  mole- 
cules taken  by  themselves,  but  by  their  relation  to  the 
whole  set  of  molecules  constituting  the  particular  mag- 
netizable body.  On  the  assumptions  of  the  molecular 
hypothesis,  the  degree  of  polarity  of  the  molecules  de- 
pends upon  their  position  in  the  magnet  as  a  whole. 
A  molecule,  a,  for  example,  situated  so  near  the  middle 
of  a  bar  magnet  that  its  assumed  magnetic  axes  are 
diverted  very  little  from  their  in-all-directions  condi- 
tion, becomes  at  once,  when  the  bar  is  broken,  almost 
entirely  converted  into  north-south  or  south-north 
axes,  depending  on  whether  the  molecule  is  situated  on 
the  north  or  south  side  of  the  break.  The  same  mole- 
cule may  become  one  or  another  kind  of  magnet,  de- 
pending upon  the  whole  magnet  of  which  it  is  a  part. 
In  other  words  the  explanation,  on  the  basis  of  the 
molecular  theory  of  magnetism,  of  the  genesis  of  one 
magnet  from  another  by  division,  is  seen  on  analysis 
to  depend  not  on  the  exclusively  inherent  powers  of 
the  molecules,  but  on  their  interrelational  powers  and 
also  on  their  mass  powers,  that  is,  powers  which  they 
possess  in  virtue  of  belonging  to  the  particular  magnet 
to  which  they  do  belong.  In  reality  the  molecular 
theory  of  magnetism  is  an  attempted  explanation  of 
the  molecules  of  magnetizable  substances  based  on 
what  magnets  are,  rather  than  an  explanation  of  the 
magnet  based  on  what  the  molecules  are;  and  the  only 
real  merit  the  theory  has  is  that  it  facilitates  the 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  69 

quantitative  treatment  of  magnets.* 

This  conception  of  magnetism  as  a  fundamentally 
interrelational  phenomenon  between  molecules  and 
masses  of  molecules,  is  exhibited  with  special  clearness 
by  the  magnetic  phenomena  of  various  alloys.  One 
of  these  that  seems  to  have  attracted  unusual  attention 
among  physicists  is  known  as  Heusler's  alloy.  This, 
as  already  indicated,  is  composed  of  copper,  aluminum 
and  manganese.  It  is  said  to  be  the  most  strongly 
ferromagnetic  of  all  known  alloys.  The  significance 
of  this  for  the  point  we  are  here  making  is  very  obvious 
when  it  is  remembered  that  each  of  the  metals,  copper, 
aluminum  and  manganese,  taken  by  itself,  is  always  re- 
garded as  non-magnetic.  Note  how  this  magnetic  alloy 
illustrates  the  general  proposition  that  some  attributes 
of  the  parts  of  a  natural  whole,  are  determined  by  the 
whole  itself.  If  it  be  really  true,  as  authorities  seem 
to  agree,  that  copper,  aluminum,  and  manganese  are, 
taken  separately,  non-magnetic,  we  can  not  even  say 
that  they  are  proved  by  the  magnetic  alloy  to  be  poten- 
tially magnetic  in  a  full  sense.  All  that  is  proved  is 
that  each  is  potentially  able  to  cooperate  with  the 
others  in  producing  the  magnetism  in  the  alloy.  Heus- 
ler's discovery  that  this  alloy  is  magnetic  was  the  dis- 
covery of  a  hitherto  unknown  attribute  of  copper, 

*  It  has  recently  been  suggested  that  the  ultimate  magnetic  par- 
ticle is  not  the  molecule  but  the  atom  or  something  within  it.  But 
there  is  nothing  in  the  revised  hypothesis  that  would  affect  the 
reasoning  here  presented. 


70  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

aluminum  and  manganese,  though  exactly  what  that 
attribute  is  was  not  discovered,  for  the  investigators 
have  not  determined  what  part  each  plays  in  making 
the  alloy  magnetic.  One  investigator,  we  learn  from 
Chwolson  (Traite  de  physique,  t.  4,  p.  883),  has  tried 
to  refer  the  magnetism  of  the  alloy  to  the  manganese, 
but  this  is  found  unsatisfactory  and  Heusler  himself 
regards  it  as  due  to  a  chemical  combination  of  a  sort 
peculiar  to  the  metals. 

So  here  again,  as  in  the  production  of  water,  we 
have  conclusive  proof  of  the  generative  power  of  a  com- 
plex in  its  totality,  but  without  knowing  what  part 
each  constituent  plays.  We  are  absolutely  sure  of 
the  competency  of  the  whole  to  account  for  the  phe- 
nomenon presented,  though  this  falls  short  of  certainty 
about  the  part  played  by  the  ultimate  elements. 

But  it  is  when  we  pass  to  the  organic  realm  that  the 
truth  of  our  statement  of  how  we  interpret  generative 
processes  in  nature  stands  out  most  boldly.  Much  has 
been  made  in  the  modern  era  of  interpreting  man  in  the 
light  of  his  origin.  This  is  good  so  far;  but  more 
notice  ought  to  be  taken  of  the  truth  that  in  reality  we 
also  interpret  the  origin  of  man  in  the  light  of  what 
he  is.  The  general  truth  illustrated  by  this  statement 
will  be  made  clear  by  familiar  facts  drawn  from  the 
two  fields  of  ontogenesis  and  phylogenesis,  i.  e.,  indi- 
vidual development,  and  race  development.  That  in 
the  actual  laboratory  work  of  studying  ontogenies  the 
various  stages  are  interpreted  in  the  light  of  what  is 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  71 

known  of  succeeding1  stages,  is  familiar  to  every  biolo- 
gist. But  that  the  student  would  be  quite  helpless  with 
the  developing  organisms  were  it  not  for  his  knowledge 
of  what  they  are  to  become,  seems  not  to  be  sufficiently 
noticed.  That  such  antecedent  knowledge  is  essential, 
is  manifest  from  the  many  cases  in  zoology  where  larvae 
which  undergo  radical  metamorphosis  were  discovered 
before  the  adults  of  the  same  species  were  known,  or  at 
any  rate  before  the  larvae  were  known  to  be  the  young 
of  the  particular  species.  What  has  usually  happened 
in  these  cases  is  that  either  no  attempt  was  originally 
made  to  tell  what  the  adult  would  be,  and  so  to  deter- 
mine the  taxonomic  position  of  the  larva;  or  an  en- 
tirely wrong  guess  as  to  its  true  nature  and  affinities 
was  made.  The  point  is  unequivocal  once  one  reflects 
on  it.  There  are  absolutely  no  observable  attributes 
in  the  germinal  elements  of  any  organism  or  even  in 
the  advanced  larvae  of  many  (when  these  are  regarded 
by  themselves)  on  which  predictions  can  be  based  of 
what  they  will  develop  into,  just  as  there  is  nothing 
observable  about  oxygen  and  hydrogen  taken  sepa- 
rately that  forecasts  water,  or  about  copper  and 
aluminum  and  manganese  that  forecasts  magnetism  in 
Heusler's  alloy. 

Shift  now  the  point  of  view  to  phylogenesis  and  see 
how  the  principle  works  there.  The  origin  of  new 
kinds  of  plants  and  animals  by  mutation,  about  which 
so  much  has  been  learned  in  late  years,  brings  out  the 
point.  What  botanist  or  zoologist  would  pretend  that 


78  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

by  studying  a  given  species  of  plant  or  animal  he  could 
tell  when  it  is  going  to  give  rise  to  a  mutation  and  just 
what  the  mutant  would  be?  It  is  highly  probable  that 
after  a  large  amount  of  critical  knowledge  of  muta- 
tions occurring  in  particular  groups  has  been  accumu- 
lated, something  in  the  way  of  rules  or  laws  of  muta- 
tion will  be  made  out,  and  that  it  will  be  possible  to 
say  in  a  general  way  that  such  and  such  mutations 
may  be  expected.  But  no  one  should  fail  to  see  what 
a  vastly  different  matter  this  would  be  from  fore- 
telling by  examining  a  given  plant  or  animal  as  such, 
that  it  will  produce  a  predescribed  mutant  at  a  speci- 
fied time. 

The  cases  of  natural  genesis,  inorganic  and  organic, 
which  we  have  considered,  show  two  things  of  great 
importance  for  our  general  conception  of  nature: 
first,  that  there  is  a  limit  beyond  which  scientific  pre- 
diction of  generative  processes  can  not  go,  either  in 
inorganic  or  in  organic  nature;  but  second,  that  this 
limit  is  so  placed  that  it  leaves  no  need  for  the  assump- 
tion of  extra-  or  supernatural  forces  to  account  for 
what  is  produced. 

These  limitations  to  prediction  are  due,  as  we  have 
seen,  mainly  to  the  fact  that  observational  knowledge 
is  excluded  from  direct  hold  upon  what  is  latent  in 
nature.  But  at  the  same  time  that  the  very  nature  of 
our  knowledge  limits  our  ability  to  predict  future 
natural  products,  it  gives  us  certainty  that  the  gen- 
erators are  the  sufficient  explanation  of  the  products. 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  73 

It  will  be  worth  while  to  exhibit  the  implications  of  this 
argument  in  their  historic  and  general  setting.  This 
can  be  done  to  good  advantage  by  seeing  how  it  accords 
with  the  usual  mechanistic  view  concerning  the  pre- 
dictability of  natural  phenomena.  Huxley's  famous 
statement  of  that  view  will  serve  our  purpose  well.  "If 
the  fundamental  proposition  of  evolution  is  true," 
Huxley  says,  "that  the  entire  world,  living  and  not 
living,  is  the  result  of  mutual  interaction,  according 
to  definite  laws,  of  the  forces  possessed  by  the  molecules 
of  which  the  primitive  nebulosity  of  the  universe  was 
composed,  it  is  no  less  certain  that  the  existing  world 
lay,  potentially,  in  the  cosmic  vapor,  and  that  a  suffi- 
cient intellect  could,  from  a  knowledge  of  the  proper- 
ties of  the  molecules  of  that  vapor,  have  predicted, 
say,  the  state  of  the  fauna  of  Great  Britain  in  1869, 
with  as  much  certainty  as  one  can  say  what  will  happen 
to  the  vapor  of  the  breath  in  a  cold  winter's  day." 

If  we  have  correctly  described  the  course  of  inter- 
pretation of  natural  genesis  in  the  above  instances, 
and  if  these  instances  are  typical  for  all  such  inter- 
pretation, then  there  is  much  to  criticize  in  such  a  mech- 
anistic view  of  the  constitution  and  evolution  of  the 
world.  First  of  all,  there  is  much  ground  for  question- 
ing the  assumption  of  a  condition  of  "primitive  nebu- 
losity" for  the  entire  universe;  a  condition,  that  is, 
in  which  only  molecular  forces,  as  we  now  understand 
them  were  operative.  For  example,  what  is  the  evi- 
dence that  gravitation,  which  presupposes  considerable 


74  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

masses,  existed  only  as  a  latent  attribute  of  molecules  ? 
But  let  that  pass.  It  is  not  the  point  in  the  statement 
specially  open  to  attack  on  the  principles  we  have 
been  examining.  Nor  is  the  vulnerable  point  in  the 
contention  that  the  existing  world  once  "lay  potentially 
in  the  cosmic  vapor."  Since  the  existing  world  is  an 
undoubted  reality,  it  undoubtedly  did  once  lie  poten- 
tially in  the  cosmic  vapor — if  such  a  vapor  ever 
actually  existed.  The  point  upon  which  our  assault 
must  be  directed  is  the  assertion  "a  sufficient  intellect 
could,  from  a  knowledge  of  the  properties  of  the  mole- 
cules of  that  vapor,  have  predicted  .  .  .  the  fauna  of 
Great  Britain  in  1869."  The  trouble  with  the  asser- 
tion can  be  brought  out  by  asking,  what  would  be  a 
"sufficient  intellect"  to  make  such  a  prediction?  An- 
swering this  in  the  light  of  what  we  have  learned  about 
the  nature  of  experiential  knowledge,  we  see  that  no 
amount  of  augmentation  of  power,  or  content  of  such 
intellect  as  ours,  would  be  sufficient,  but  that  a  wholly 
different  kind  of  intellect  would  be  necessary.  This  is 
so  because,  constituted  as  we  are,  we  have  no  sense 
with  which  to  observe  potentiality  and  no  thought 
method  with  which  to  conceive  it.  Nor  have  we  an  inkling 
of  what  kind  of  sense  or  what  kind  of  thought  could 
do  that,  even  supposing  it  might  be  done.  What  sort 
of  sense  would  it  be,  do  you  think,  that  would  perceive 
water  in  oxygen  and  hydrogen?  Do  not  fail  to  make 
the  distinction  between  seeing  potential  water  in  oxygen 
and  hydrogen,  and  finding  certain  properties  in  the 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  75 

gases  that  would  enable  one  to  foresee  that  the  gases 
might  under  certain  conditions  combine  and  transform 
into  water.  There  is  a  far  profounder  difference  than 
mechanistic  reasoning  takes  cognizance  of  between  the 
attributes  of  oxygen  by  which  we  know  it  here  and  now, 
and  those  in  virtue  of  which  it  produces  water  upon 
reacting  with  hydrogen. 

Bergson  has  passed  much  this  same  criticism  on  the 
claim  by  science  of  the  power  of  prediction,  but  his 
argument  makes  use  of  the  element  of  time  in  a  way 
that,  taken  in  connection  with  the  criticism  advanced 
above,  may  make  more  obvious  the  validity  of  the  criti- 
cism. Time,  Bergson  says,  "is  deprived  of  its  efficacy" 
by  such  conception  of  foreseeing  as  that  proposed  by 
Pluxley.  This  mode  of  statement  involves  Bergson's 
peculiar  view  of  the  nature  of  time.  But  we  can  make 
the  time  element  help  our  criticism  without  commitment 
to  any  theory  as  to  what  time  is.  Put  it  this  way: 
Perceptual  knowledge  is  wholly  dependent  upon  the 
actual  attributes  of  the  perceived  object.  It  is  the 
very  quintessence  of  such  knowledge  to  be  thus  depend- 
ent. But  all  chemical  action  is  known  to  require  a 
certain  amount  of  time,  however  small.  That  is,  some 
time  is  required  for  the  actual  attributes  of  a  chemical 
product  to  evolve  from  their  latent  condition  in  react- 
ing elements.  Hence  for  one  to  claim  that  he  is  able 
to  predict  the  attributes  of  the  product  from  the  ele- 
mental substances  is  equivalent  to  claiming  that  he  can 
annihilate  the  time  required  in  chemical  action.  Stated 


76  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

comparatively  and  in  the  rough,  the  intellect  that 
would  be  capable  of  predicting  the  British  fauna  of 
1869  from  the  cosmic  vapor  out  of  which  the  world 
is  supposed  to  have  been  produced,  would  be  one  en- 
dowed with  genuine  clairvoyant  powers;  one  capable 
of  foreseeing  independently  of  the  mechanism  and  ex- 
periences requisite  to  all  ordinary  foresight.  In  a 
strict  sense  prediction  of  what  will  occur  in  nature  is 
wholly  conditioned  upon  knowledge  of  what  has  oc- 
curred, and  consequently  an  intellect  so  endowed  that 
it  could  predict  the  present  world  before  ever  any 
such  world  had  existed,  would  be  one  so  endowed  that 
it  could  interpret  natural  phenomena  without  any 
experiential  knowledge  of  such  phenomena — a  result 
exactly  antithetic  to  what  Huxley's  whole  practical 
life  and  teaching  stood  for. 

It  is  now  high  time  to  see  how  the  various  arguments, 
scattered,  somewhat  bunglingly  and  obscurely,  along 
the  road  over  which  we  have  come,  stand  us  in  hand 
toward  the  fulfillment  of  our  main  task,  that  of  show- 
ing that  science  has  moral  obligations  and  is  able  of 
her  own  strength  to  meet  them.  If  the  two  proposi- 
tions be  accepted  that  we  have  absolutely  no  way  of 
knowing  what  nature  is  capable  of  producing  except- 
ing from  what  she  actually  has  produced;  and  that 
she  is  seen  to  be  self-sufficient  for  the  production  of  all 
we  actually  find  in  her  providing  we  recognize  a  suffi- 
ciently wide  range  and  large  number  of  factors  as 
operative  in  the  generative  processes,  then,  obviously, 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  77 

in  order  to  understand  rightly  her  productive  powers 
and  to  be  able  to  forecast  with  the  highest  attainable 
correctness  what  in  future  she  may  bring  forth,  it  is 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  have  the  broadest,  most 
reliable  knowledge  possible  of  her  actual  products. 
Due  appreciation  of  this  puts  one,  eo  ipso,  in  the  frame 
of  mind  for  what  Whewell  has  called  the  natural  his- 
tory method  of  philosophizing,  and  on  which  I  dwell 
somewhat  critically  in  the  last  essay  in  this  volume. 

From  now  on  our  occupation  will  be  with  man,  and 
this  reference  to  the  natural  history  method  of  philoso- 
phizing is  made  to  carry  us  across  from  the  logico- 
scientific  argument  in  which  we  have  been  engaged,  to 
the  logico-humanistic  argument  that  is  to  follow.  Re- 
cent philosophic  discussion  of  human  history  has,  we 
are  informed  (E.  G.  Teggart,  Prolegomena  to  History, 
p.  66),  made  much  of  the  fact  that  history  is  concerned 
primarily  with  names  and  deeds  which  are  individual 
and  largely  unique  and  isolate,  while  science  deals  pri- 
marily with  the  general  principles  and  laws  of  nature. 
This  is  one  of  the  chief  reasons,  it  is  said  by  some,  why 
a  scientific  treatment  of  history  is  impossible.  The 
much  discussed  question  of  whether  history  in  the  usual 
meaning  of  the  word  is  or  can  become  a  science  does 
not  directly  concern  the  present  argument.  What  does 
interest  us  very  closely  is  the  contention  widely  made 
that  the  main  if  not  the  sole  business  of  science  is  with 
the  repetitions  and  recurrences  in  nature;  in  other 
words  with  general  rules  and  laws,  and  that  in  the 


78  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

individual,  the  unique,  the  exceptional,  science  has  only 
a  passing  and  uncompelling  interest.  This  theory  of 
the  nature  and  aim  of  science  is  in  large  measure  re- 
sponsible for  the  view  that  science  touches  only  the 
edges  of  human  life.  Man's  social  and  all  higher  life  is 
too  personal,  too  single,  too  exceptional,  it  is  affirmed, 
to  admit  reduction  to  law,  and  consequently  is  in- 
capable of  scientific  treatment. 

Now  I  insist  that  the  natural  history  mode  of 
dealing  with  nature  can  not  possibly  be  ignored  by  con- 
sistent science,  and  that  this  method  is  a  natural  cor- 
rective and  filling  out  of  the  partial  view  of  science 
above  indicated.  From  this  standpoint  the  present 
essay  is  a  complement  to  the  one  referred  to  a  few 
sentences  back,  in  which  the  cardinal  aim  is  to  show 
the  essentiality  and  indispens ability  of  description, 
definition,  and  classification  for  all  departments  of 
biology.  The  argument  there  is  designed  to  show  that 
occupation  with  individuals — individual  organisms  and 
individual  parts  of  organisms  in  endless  array — is  ex- 
actly one  of  the  most  distinctive  features  of  biology, 
and  that  such  occupation  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the 
natural  history  method.  In  the  present  essay  I  have 
tried  to  show  that  when  dealing  with  the  genesis  of 
living  things,  or  for  that  matter  of  all  natural  things, 
regard  for  single  objects  and  events,  even  objects  and 
events  which  have  much  of  uniqueness  about  them,  is  in 
reality  unescapable.  Science  can  do  absolutely  nothing 
with  magnetism  apart  from  individual  magnets. 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  79 

The  concluding  section  will  present  a  few  special 
cases  of  the  fundamental  interest  of  science  in  organic 
individuals,  even  in  unique  individuals,  and  will  at  the 
same  time  reveal  the  grip  man's  moral  nature  has  on 
his  intellectual,  his  esthetic  and  his  religious  natures. 
If  nature's  ability  to  produce  men  is  really  to  be 
judged  by  the  men  she  has  produced,  then  it  must 
follow  that  the  exceptions,  or,  if  there  be  such,  the 
wholly  unique  men  must  be  just  as  important  so  far  as 
this  criterion  is  concerned,  as  are  the  most  common- 
place men.  If  it  be  literally  true  that  the  world  has 
produced  only  one  Napoleon,  it  nevertheless  holds  that 
Napoleon  is  just  as  indubitable  a  proof  of  nature's 
man-producing  ability  as  are  the  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  the  rank  and  file  of  soldiers  who  made  up  his 
armies.  And  the  same  is  true,  of  course,  for  any  of 
the  other  members  of  the  human  species  who  by  reason 
of  their  deeds  stand  as  much  alone  among  their  kind  as 
does  Everest  among  mountain  peaks,  the  Pacific  among 
oceans,  or  giant  redwoods  among  trees. 

One  is  familiar  enough  with  the  objections  to  view- 
ing supreme  geniuses  in  this  way.  They  are  not 
natural  products  at  all,  in  a  strict  sense,  it  is  said. 
This  denial  receives  a  show  of  defense  by  a  variety  of 
more  or  less  inept  or  loose  or  untrue  assertions,  an 
examination  of  which  would  be  profitless  even  had  one 
the  time  for  it.  There  are,  however,  two  types  of  view 
given  in  support  of  the  denial  that  geniuses  are  really 
natural  which  demand  attention.  One  holds  them  to  be 


80  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

a  sort  of  accident  or  artifact,  produced  by  their  par- 
ticular age  and  environment  acting  on  a  mere  sub- 
stratum of  physical  genesis  and  heredity.  The  other 
looks  upon  them  as  special  acts  of  an  over-ruling 
Providence,  as  strictly  human  beings  perhaps  but  yet 
sent  at  special  times  because  of  special  needs  calling 
for  special  talents. 

From  the  facts  we  have  been  seeing  and  the  reason- 
ing we  have  been  going  through,  it  will  be  easy  to  per- 
ceive our  preparedness  to  rebut  both  these  forms  of 
denial  that  geniuses  are  natural  products.  If  one  will 
base  his  inquiries  into  and  his  speculating  about  the 
production  of  Napoleon  on  the  sum  total  of  positive 
knowledge  of  the  man  himself  and  the  whole  set  of 
environic  conditions  which  acted  upon  him,  rather  than 
upon  one's  general  knowledge  and  doctrinal  predilec- 
tions about  heredity,  variation,  environmental  influ- 
ence, and  so  forth,  he  will,  I  think,  come  into  a  full- 
fledged  sense  of  certitude  on  two  points,  or  rather  on 
one  point  viewed  from  two  directions;  namely,  that 
Napoleon  was  in  the  strictest  sense  a  natural  being, 
i.  e.,  a  natural  product;  and  that  the  fact  of  his  per- 
sonal and  public  life  is  proof  of  nature's  generative 
ability  for  the  military  type  of  the  human  species. 

Contention  for  the  naturalness  of  the  completed 
lives  and  labors  of  geniuses  may  on  first  impression 
seem  rather  far-fetched,  but  may  be  helped  toward  nor- 
mality by  a  remark  which  has  considerable  expository 
importance.  That  remark  concerns  the  question  of 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  81 

whether  human  actions  and  the  results  thereof  shall 
be  regarded  as  natural;  the  question,  in  other  words, 
of  what  is  natural  and  what  is  artificial.  Large  and 
important  as  this  question  is  from  some  points  of 
view,  for  the  present  discussion  it  can  be  disposed  of 
quite  summarily  if  we  have  felt  the  full  import  of  the 
natural  history  mode  of  interpreting  nature,  one  of 
the  mandatory  tenets  of  which  is  "neglect  nothing" 
when  bent  upon  the  complete  interpretation  of  any 
organism.  Put  the  query  about  the  artificiality  of 
man's  acts  and  fabrications  alongside  the  same  query 
about  the  acts  and  fabrications  of  any  other  animal. 
Is  the  burrow  of  a  ground  squirrel — assuming  the 
squirrel  dug  it — artificial  or  natural?  Is  the  "comb" 
of  the  honey  bee  artificial  or  natural?  Is  a  bird's  nest 
or  a  beaver's  dam  artificial  or  natural?  Is  an  Indian's 
wigwam  artificial  or  natural?  Is  the  White  House  at 
the  end  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue  artificial  or  natural? 
Is  not  this  a  perfectly  homogeneous,  consistent  series 
of  questions  ?  Then  some  one  answer  must  be  applica- 
ble to  them  all.  That  answer  is  this:  The  artificial 
holds  the  relation  to  the  natural  of  species  to  genus,  in 
the  sense  of  formal  logic.  The  artificial  fabrication  is 
one  kind  of  natural  fabrication ;  the  kind,  namely,  that 
is  produced  by  nature  through  the  volitional  operation 
of  some  animal  rather  than  through  the  immediate 
operation  of  natural  forces.  This  argument  might  be 
differentiated  and  veered  and  checked  endlessly  without 
impairing  its  substance.  The  State,  the  military  cam- 


82  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

paign,  the  Drama,  the  Statue,  the  Church,  even  though 
all  admittedly  artificial,  are  yet  natural,  and  their 
artificiality  must  acknowledge  the  overlordship  of  their 
naturalness. 

To  objectify  as  much  as  possible  the  apparently 
infinite  and  infinitely  varied  productivity  of  nature,  even 
within  the  limits  of  the  human  species,  send  your 
thoughts  hastily  to  just  a  few  representatives  of  the 
world's  supremely  great  men.  In  the  field  of  war  and 
conquest  take  Napoleon  and  Alexander;  in  that  of 
government  think  of  Lincoln  and  Hideyoshi;  in  litera- 
ture, of  Goethe  and  Shakespeare;  in  science  and  dis- 
covery, of  Newton  and  Columbus;  in  delineative  art, 
of  Rembrandt  and  Michelangelo.  And  on  the  dark 
side  think  of  Cesare  Borgia  and  Nero.  I  protest 
against  the  strong  tendency  of  recent  biology  to  be- 
come so  absorbed  with  "analyzing  the  germ  plasm"  as 
to  become  obsessed  with  a  doctrine  that  makes  it  neces- 
sary either  to  "explain"  these  mighty  figures  in  terms 
of  hereditary  units  of  some  sort,  or  pronounce  them 
mere  accidents,  or  "by-products  of  natural  selection" 
or  "epiphenomena,"  so  not  falling  within  the  pale  of 
scientific  interest  and  treatment ! 

With  the  greatest  deliberation  I  express  the  opinion 
that  the  history  of  science  from  its  dawn  until  now 
is  nowhere  disfigured  by  a  more  monstrous  folly  than 
that  of  the  germ-plasm  theory  in  its  extreme  form, 
for  it  is  largely  responsible  for  the  theory  held  by 
much  of  recent  biology  that  the  higher  manifestations 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  83 

of  men's  lives  are  by-products  of  natural  selection  (the 
view  of  orthodox  Weismannism)  or  are  incidents  of  the 
interaction  between  Heredity  and  Environment  re- 
garded as  two  modern  Fates,  and  so  outside  the  realm 
of  science. 

The  list  of  great  men  given  above  contained  no  ex- 
amples of  geniuses  in  the  realm  of  morals  and  religion. 
What  about  these?  It  is  just  here  that  almost  all  for- 
mal philosophy  has  held  the  generative  powers  of 
nature  to  fail.  The  incompetency  of  such  powers  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  man  is  specially  seen,  so 
philosophy  asserts,  when  we  come  to  consider  what 
history  presents  in  these  realms.  "Almost  all,"  I  said, 
of  the  great  philosophies  have  believed  nature  inade- 
quate at  this  point.  A  partial  exception  to  this  is  the 
system  of  moral  philosophy  inseparably  linked  with  the 
name  Confucius.  Of  the  several  ways  in  which  the 
teachings  of  this  great  man,  so  much  neglected  by  the 
western  world,  ought  to  become  a  vital  force  in  that 
world,  I  can  touch  only  a  few,  one  of  which  is  his  in- 
culcations on  mental  morality.  "When  you  know  a 
thing,"  Confucius  says  in  one  of  the  Analects,  "to  hold 
that  you  know  it,  and  when  you  do  not  know  a  thing, 
to  acknowledge  that  you  do  not,  that  is  knowledge." 
"In  these  words,"  writes  M.  M.  Dawson  in  his  recent 
volume,  The  Ethics  of  Confucius,  "Confucius  set  forth 
more  lucidly  than  any  other  thinker,  ancient  or  mod- 
ern, the  essential  of  all  morality,  mental  honesty,  in- 
tegrity of  mind — the  only  attitude  which  does  not 


84  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

close  the  door  to  truth."  I  agree  with  Dawson  that 
Confucius  appears  to  have  seen  the  vital  importance 
of  mental  morality  more  clearly  than  it  has  been  un- 
derstood by  any  philosophy  which  has  gained  practical 
importance  in  the  western  world,  not  even  excepting 
the  Platonic  and  the  Kantian. 

It  is  desirable  to  be  explicit  as  to  wherein  the  philos- 
ophies which  have  had  greatest  ethical  potency  in 
western  civilization  have  gone  seriously  wrong. 
Neither  Christian  theology  nor  modern  science  has 
frankly  acknowledged  the  limitations  to  what  they 
know  about  the  origin  of  man,  of  living  nature  gen- 
erally, and  of  the  world.  They  have  assumed  more 
understanding  than  they  have  on  the  subject,  and  on 
that  assumption  they  have  based  judgments  and  esti- 
mates of  men  and  society  and  nations.  Most  disas- 
trously important  of  all,  the  hypotheses  concerning 
man's  origin  which  they  have  erected  into  dogmas, 
tend  to  the  belittlement,  even  to  the  degradation  of 
man.  The  "poor  worm  of  earth"  theory  of  man  that 
has  figured  so  largely  in  Christian  teaching;  and  the 
"nothing  but"  chemical  substances,  and  animality,  so 
persistently  preached  by  recent  biology,  are  dis- 
tinctly subversive  of  all  that  is  best  in  human  nature. 

Let  us  return  to  Confucius  for  a  moment.  The  em- 
phasis he  put  on  mental  morality  was  part  and  parcel 
of  his  general  reverence  for  learning  and  truth,  and 
learning  for  him  meant  investigation  of  things — com- 
mon things.  "Looking  up  he  contemplates  the  brilliant' 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  85 

phenomena  of  the  heavens,  and  looking  down,  exam- 
ines the  definite  arrangement  of  the  earth;  thus  he 
knows  the  causes  of  darkness  and  of  light,"  the  basal 
aim  of  it  all  being  to  see  the  world  whole.  "I  seek 
unity,  all  pervading,"  he  said ;  and  investigations  thus 
prosecuted  and  truth  thus  attained  lead  to  virtue. 
And  be  it  specially  remembered  that  the  great  learning 
and  insight  and  virtue  which  all  are  agreed  Confucius 
possessed,  were  his  through  the  possession  and  exercise 
of  physical  and  intellectual  and  spiritual  powers  com- 
mon to  all  men.  "I  am  not  one  who  was  born  in  the 
possession  of  knowledge,"  he  said,  "I  am  one  who  is 
fond  of  antiquity  and  earnest  in  seeking  it."  In  short, 
and  this  is  a  matter  of  supreme  significance,  Confucius 
and  his  followers  elaborated  a  truly  magnificent  moral 
system  without  any  claim  to  miraculous  or  super- 
natural aid.  We  may  say,  I  think,  that  a  higher, 
more  potent,  strictly  rational  moral  philosophy  is 
hardly  possible. 

But  the  verdict  of  history  and  the  testimony  of  ex- 
perience stand  as  conclusive  proof  that  the  Confucian 
moral  system,  splendid  as  it  is,  is  yet  inadequate  for 
the  modern  world.  It  lacks  something.  What?  It 
lacks  that  peculiar  driving  force  which  nothing  but 
religious  faith  seems  able  to  supply.  That  is  why,  I 
suppose,  Confucianism  has  supplemented  itself  in 
China  and  Japan  with  Buddhism. 

So  much  for  one  of  Asia's  great  religio-ethical  gifts 
to  mankind.  Turn  now  to  another  which  is,  both 


86  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

ethically  and  religiously,  almost  the  complete  antithesis 
of  Confucianism.  I  mean  Mohammedanism.  Moham- 
med may  be  characterized  as  a  man  possessed  of  very 
unusual  endowments,  among  which  the  religious  in- 
stinct was  the  most  powerful,  and  the  moral  instinct 
about  the  least  powerful;  and  who  lived  in  an  age  and 
environment  which,  because  of  these  basal  endowments, 
developed  him  into  a  religious  monomaniac  whose 
sensibilities  to  the  rights  and  dignities  of  his  fellow- 
beings  generally  became  reduced  to  almost  nil.  It  is 
impossible  to  appreciate  Mohammed  and  his  work 
rightly  without  recognizing  the  true  grandeur  of  the 
prophet's  proclamation  of  the  singleness  and  unity  of 
God,  and  as  a  corollary,  of  the  idolatrousness  and 
perversity  of  holding  any  other  being  or  thing  as  on  a 
par  with  God;  and  at  the  same  time  his  detestation  of 
unbelievers,  which  of  course  meant  the  vast  majority 
of  mankind.  "If  God  should  punish  men  according 
to  what  they  deserve,  he  would  not  leave  on  the  back 
of  the  earth  so  much  as  a  beast,"  we  read  in  the  Koran. 
(The  Creator,  last  sentence.) 

What  about  the  synthesis  that  would  include  all 
that  is  true  of  Confucianism  and  Mohammedism?  Be- 
fore giving  my  answer  to  this  query,  I  would  call  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  teachings  of  Confucius  and 
Mohammed  contain  elements  which  adumbrate  the 
possibility  of  such  a  synthesis,  that  element  being  the 
struggle  of  both  men  toward  unity.  "I  seek  unity,  all 
pervasive,"  said  the  great  Chinese.  "I  teach  the  unity 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  87 

of  God,"  said  the  great  Saracen. 

And  now  for  the  categorical  answer  which  I  propose 
to  the  query  just  made.  The  ethico-religious  teachings 
of  Jesus  come  nearer  effecting  the  desired  synthesis 
than  any  yet  given  to  the  world,  but  they  do  not  com- 
plete the  synthesis,  the  remaining  defectiveness  being 
on  the  intellectual  side.  This  defect  modern  science  is 
in  position  to  make  good  so  far  as  is  possible  in  the 
present  state  of  the  world's  advancement.  The  par- 
ticular resources  of  science  which  are  available  for  use 
toward  this  synthesis  are  the  generalizations  which  are 
being  reached  as  to  the  nature  of  the  individual  and 
the  relation  among  individuals  and  in  the  domain  of 
what  I  have  called  bio-integration.  What  the  gen- 
eralizations are  in  these  two  domains  I  have  attempted 
to  summarize  in  Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of 
Morals,  the  third  essay  in  this  volume.  The  import 
of  the  generalizations  of  supreme  importance  for  the 
present  discussion  may,  however,  be  stated  as  follows: 
The  interdependencies  among  the  individuals  of  the 
human  species  are  found  to  be  such,  when  traced 
through  on  the  principles  of  bio-integration,  as  to  con- 
stitute a  solid  scientific  foundation  for  the  doctrine 
familiarly  known  as  the  brotherhood  of  man,  out  of 
which  has  grown  that  aphoristic  guide  to  conduct,  the 
Golden  Rule.  The  whole  range  of  considerations  in  the 
above-mentioned  essay,  and  those  set  forth  in  this  one, 
justify  the  conclusion  that  the  full  meaning  and 
grandeur  of  the  ethical  doctrines  given  in  outline  by 


88  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

Jesus,  can  be  grasped  only  when  they  are  perceived 
to  be  in  strictness  part  and  parcel  of  what  we  call  the 
natural  order,  or  the  system  of  nature,  the  "frame  and 
substance  of  the  universe." 

The  loftiness  and  inspiration  of  such  a  conception 
of  man's  nature  and  chance  of  progress  is  enhanced  by 
noticing  in  bird's-eye  view  the  course  over  which  world- 
civilization  has  run,  and  where  it  now  stands. 

All  the  great  religious  and  some  of  the  greatest 
ethical  philosophies  of  the  world  have  come,  as  has 
apparently  man  himself,  out  of  Asia.  No  world- 
moving  religious  idea  has  sprung  from  Europe  or  any 
of  the  other  continents.  Europe,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  greatly  modified  and  elaborated  one  of  Asia's 
religious  systems,  Christianity,  and  has  originated  two 
or  three  ethical  systems  of  first  importance.  But  the 
supreme  contribution  of  Europe  to  civilization  has 
been  Science — Science  as  a  vast  body  of  positive  knowl- 
edge, as  a  distinct  way  of  thinking,  and  as  a  character- 
istic outlook  upon  the  world  and  human  life.  So  far 
the  gifts  of  Europe  to  civilization  are  glorious  beyond 
comparison,  for  Asia  and  the  other  continents  have 
contributed  only  subordinately  to  science  in  the  stricter 
sense. 

But  the  story  of  Europe's  achievements  has  a  very 
dark  side.  With  all  the  expanding  and  refining  and 
uplifting  forces  it  has  brought  to  bear  on  man,  it  has 
not  been  able  to  stay  or  even  greatly  to  control  his 
fighting  and  marauding  and  despoiling  instincts.  The 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science  89 

military  and  political  and  economic  developments  that 
have  taken  place  tinder  the  leadership  of  European 
motives  and  ideas,  have  been  in  the  nature  of  an  inten- 
sification and  elaboration  of  these  instincts,  apparently 
inherited  from  his  animal  ancestors.  The  history  of 
Europe  presents  a  record  of  cruelty  and  man-inflicted 
suffering  and  internecine  bloodshed  without  parallel  in 
the  histories  of  other  peoples  and  other  lands. 

It  appears  justifiable  to  forecast  that  could  such  a 
synthetic  moral  philosophy  as  that  here  indicated  be 
made,  one  consequence  would  be  the  bringing  of  man's 
acquisitive  and  hoarding  and  combative  instincts  into 
proper  correlation  and  subordination  with  his  other 
more  definitively  human  instincts. 

Finally,  may  we  not — do  we  not — discern  signs  in 
the  type  of  civilization  which  is  struggling  forward  in 
the  Americas,  particularly  in  North  America,  that 
these  recently  possessed  continents  may  now  add  their 
world-encompassing,  world-moving  contribution  to 
civilization,  that  contribution  to  be  the  very  synthesiz- 
ing of  religion,  morals,  and  science,  which  our  discus- 
sion has  revealed  might,  on  rational  grounds,  be  antici- 
pated? The  signs  which  seem  to  me  most  premonitory 
of  such  a  consummation  are  the  aggregate  of  ideas  and 
ideals  and  tendencies  in  both  Americas  which  we  com- 
monly though  not  very  definitively  name  democracy, 
and  the  development  in  the  United  States  of  what  I 
venture  to  call  scientific  philosophy. 

To  be  only  a  trifle  more  specific  as  to  what  I  mean 


90  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

by  scientific  philosophy,  reference  is  made  to  the  gen- 
eral thought  movement  known  as  pragmatism,  leader- 
ship in  which  is  universally  accorded  to  William  James 
and  John  Dewey. 

But  having  said  this  much  I  can  not  pass  the  sub- 
ject without  remarking  that  according  to  my  view  this 
new  philosophic  movement  can  never  reach  full  clarity 
and  operative  force  in  human  affairs  until  supple- 
mented from  the  side  of  science  itself,  that  supplemen- 
tation to  come  from  what  I  have  called,  taking  a  cue 
from  William  Whewell,  the  natural  history  method  of 
philosophizing.  Something  of  what  this  method  implies 
is  shown  in  the  fourth  essay  of  this  volume. 


BIOLOGY'S  CONTRIBUTION  TO  A  THEORY 
OF    MORALS    REQUISITE    FOR 
MODERN  MEN  * 

1  TRUST  no  apology  is  needed  for  bringing  such  a 
subject  as  that  which  I  have  chosen  before  a  com- 
pany of  professional  naturalists.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
if  there  is  need  for  apology  at  all  in  this  connection  it 
is  for  the  backwardness  of  naturalists  in  inquiring  what 
bearing  their  labors  have  on  the  deepest  and  dearest  of 
human  concerns. 

To  men  of  science  like  myself,  whose  faith  is  mighty 
that  there  is  no  human  interest  so  deep  and  so  dear 
that  science  may  not  make  it  richer,  the  growing  dis- 
trust of  science  in  our  day,  which  only  the  blind  can 
fail  to  see,  is  disquieting.  Whether,  as  some  are  dis- 
posed to  charge,  science  is  inimical  to  all  man's  higher 
welfare  except  his  intellect,  I  do  not  inquire.  The 
comparatively  restricted  question  of  the  relation  of 
biology  to  morals  is  what  is  to  occupy  us  for  a  period. 

*  A  paper  read  before  the  San  Diego  Meeting  of  the  Western 
Society  of  Naturalists,  August  11,  1916,  and  published  as  Bulle- 
tion  2  of  the  Scripps  Institution  for  Biological  Research  of  the 
University  of  California.  The  title  under  which  the  essay  was 
orginally  published  was:  "Biology's  Contribution  to  a  System  of 
Morals  that  would  be  Adequate  for  Modern  Civilization." 

91 


92  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

But  manifestly  even  this  can  be  touched  at  only  a  few 
points. 

At  the  outset  I  would  be  clear,  beyond  the  possibility 
of  being1  misunderstood,  that  while  I  am  profoundly 
convinced  that  biology  has  a  far  deeper  meaning  for 
morals  than  either  biologists  or  ethicists  usually  recog- 
nize, nothing  is  more  antipodal  to  my  thought  than  the 
notion  that  ethics  may  be  "reduced  to"  physics  and 
chemistry  or  even  to  physiology.  Indeed  the  "nothing 
but"  philosophy  of  life  is,  according  to  my  view,  one 
of  the  direst  factors  in  the  present  diseased  state  of 
civilization. 

Special  care  has  been  taken  to  make  the  wording  of 
my  subject  suggest  what  I  believe  biology  may  do  for 
ethics.  It  is  not  my  idea  that  biology  can  displace 
ethics,  but  that  it  can  contribute  something  to  ethics. 
More  specifically,  I  believe  biology  must  assist  ethics  in 
the  task  of  making  itself  more  scientific — more  exact 
of  definition,  more  explicit  and  positive  in  its  mandates, 
more  self-compelling  in  its  authority.  Wherein  biology 
is  now  in  better  position  than  ever  before  to  serve 
ethics  I  must  indicate  though  I  can  do  so  only  in  a 
very  brief,  oracular  way,  for  it  seems  best  to  devote 
myself  chiefly  to  some  of  the  needs  of  such  service. 

Probably  all  who  think  earnestly  on  any  of  the 
major  questions  presented  by  man  in  modern  society, 
would  agree  that  about  the  most  basal  of  these  ques- 
tions is  that  of  how  a  better  status  as  between 
man  the  individual  and  man  the  member  of  society — 


Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of  Morals       93 

between  individual  and  social  man — may  be  attained. 
Buried  deep  in  the  technical  details  of  biological 
knowledge  there  repose  truths  which  if  brought  into 
the  light  of  common  day  and  set  in  right  relation  with 
certain  truths  of  human  nature,  would,  I  believe,  con- 
tribute to  establishing  the  inviolability  and  potency  of 
the  individual  on  a  securer  foundation  than  either  sci- 
ence or  philosophy  has  hitherto  been  able  to  lay  down. 
Likewise  from  the  same  obscurity  may  be  extracted 
truths  which  would  give  a  more  solid  and  commodious 
base  than  has  yet  been  constructed  for  an  understand- 
ing of  the  interdependences  among  individuals  in  civil- 
ized society. 

The  great  point  about  individuality  is  that  re- 
searches in  the  comparative  structure,  function  and 
behavior  of  living  beings,  combined  with  comparative 
biochemistry,  is  leading  to  the  perception  that  closely 
related  species  and  even  individuals  differ  from  one  an- 
other in  certain  attributes  so  profoundly  that  these 
differences  extend  down  to  the  very  chemical  constitu- 
tion of  these  beings.  Considering  this  fact  along  with 
the  further  fact  that  every  organism  maintains  its 
identity  despite  the  perpetual  flow  through  it  of  matter 
and  energy  called  metabolism,  there  is  seen  to  be  no 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  the  organism  is  crea- 
tive in  the  deepest  sense.  The  synthetic  limb  of  the 
metabolic  cycle  results  in  some  substances  and  forces 
that  have  no  exact  duplicates  anywhere  in  the  world. 
But  if  there  are  certain  differentials  in  the  chemical 


94  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

syntheses  produced  by  two  organisms  which  in  their 
general  features  are  so  alike  that  there  are  no  differen- 
tials at  all  in  the  chemical  substances  which  enter  into 
these  syntheses,  that  is,  in  their  nutrition,  then  there 
appears  nothing  for  it  as  concerns  causal  explanation 
but  to  hold  that  the  causes  of  the  differences  in  the 
products  lie  chiefly  in  the  organisms  and  only  secon- 
darily in  the  chemical  substances  used.  Although  so 
far  chemists  have  made  out  little  or  nothing  about  just 
how  the  human  organism  uses  chemical  substances  in 
accomplishing  its  intellectual,  volitional,  and  moral 
ends,  yet  we  confidently  infer  that  these  like  all  other 
organic  activities  have  their  peculiar  chemistry ;  and 
there  is  ample  ground  for  supposing  that  future  re- 
search will  discover  much  about  the  nature  of  the 
chemical  processes  involved.  The  importance  to  the 
higher  life  of  man  of  this  conception  of  the  organism's 
relation  to  its  food  and  drink  and  the  air  it  breathes 
can  hardly  be  overestimated.  If  living  beings  really 
have  mastery  to  this  extent  over  their  environment, 
then  is  man  at  his  highest  level  a  mighty  being  indeed 
in  the  world  of  universal  causation,  for  he  is  one  of  the 
most  unique  and  most  potent  of  ah1  these  causes.  Indi- 
viduality, personality,  under  this  view  is  in  some  sense 
restored  to  the  supreme  place  conceived  for  it  by  the 
philosophies  of  self-realization.  "In  some  sense,"  I 
say,  is  there  such  restoration ;  for  the  difference  be- 
tween this  psycho-physiological  and  the  former  meta- 
physical conception  of  personal  power  is  that  science 


Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of  Morals       95 

is  in  position  to  mark  out  certain  definite  limitations  to 
such  power.  Thus  while  the  group  of  activities  we  call 
consciousness  is  seen  to  have  power  to  cause  changes  in 
material  substances,  this  power  is  limited  to  the  few 
simple  substances  that  are  used  as  nourishment  by  the 
organism.  Furthermore  there  are  ah1  the  limitations 
to  which  the  volitional  and  rational  life  is  subject  by 
general  physical  laws.  But  he  who  recognizes  himself 
to  be  by  nature  not  only  "captain  of  his  soul"  but  of 
his  body,  even  though  that  captaincy  be  subject  to  the 
conditions  indicated,  undoubtedly  has  a  freedom  and 
joyousness,  and  a  passport  to  physical  and  spiritual 
health  and  strength  that  is  impossible  for  him  whose 
faith  is  of  the  uncompromising  determinist  sort. 

It  seems  clear  that  such  virtue  as  Christian  Science 
and  other  forms  of  "Mind  Cure"  have  touching  bodily 
conditions — and  that  they  have  virtue  in  this  way  no 
candid  observer  can  possibly  deny — is  due  to  their 
having  come,  emotionally  rather  than  rationally,  upon 
certain  aspects  of  the  truth  that  the  human  organism 
has  a  measure  of  real  control  over  its  metabolic  proc- 
esses as  well  as  over  others  of  its  functional  activities. 
It  will  be  a  long  forward  step  on  the  road  of  personal 
happiness  and  efficiency  when  through  common  educa- 
tion and  normal  living,  men  shall  have  possessed  them- 
selves of  all  the  virtues  but  dispensed  with  all  the  vaga- 
ries of  Christian  Science. 

The  biological  truths  referred  to  as  basic  material 
for  a  better  understanding  of  the  interdependence 


96  Tlfie  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

among  men,  are  truths  of  what  we  may  call  bio-inte- 
gration. The  phenomena  under  this  head  have  been 
forcing  themselves  upon  the  attention  of  biologists 
with  special  insistence  during  the  last  two  or  three 
decades.  Appearing  first  in  the  realm  of  embryology 
under  the  ill-defined  caption  "the  organism  as  a  whole," 
investigation  made  manifest  the  inadequacy  of  the  cell 
theory  as  applied  to  the  developing  individual.  The 
essence  of  this  discovery  was  that  while  the  cells  of  an 
embryo  are  independent  units  in  a  sense,  in  an  equally 
important  sense  they  are  subordinate  to  a  higher  unit, 
the  organism  itself.  Otherwise  stated,  the  discovery  is 
that  integration  is  as  primal  and  essential  a  phenome- 
non in  the  development  of  the  individual  as  is  differ- 
entiation. 

Passing  from  embryology  to  physiology  through 
such  discoveries  as  those  on  the  integrative  action  of 
the  nervous  system  and  of  the  internal  secretions,  we 
are  now  reaching  the  conception  that  within  the  indi- 
vidual coordination  of  labor  among  its  cells  and  organs 
is  as  primal  and  essential  a  phenomenon  as  is  division 
of  labor. 

Simultaneously  with  these  advances  in  embryology 
and  physiology,  psychology  has  moved  swiftly  forward 
along  the  road  of  integration.  The  psychology  of  the 
human  individual  has  made  great  strides  in  demonstrat- 
ing the  interdependence  of  the  physical  and  spiritual 
aspects  of  man.  This  it  has  done  chiefly  through  re- 
vising its  basal  conceptions  so  as  to  make  them  include 


Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of  Morals       97 

the  affective  and  emotional  sides  of  man's  nature  as  well 
as  his  intellect,  which  almost  alone  received  serious  con- 
sideration by  the  old  introspective  psychology. 

Finally  psychology  has  now  pushed  its  frontier  far 
enough  into  the  domain  of  man's  social  relations  to 
begin  to  give  definiteness  to  the  hitherto  illy  defined 
popular  assertion  that  man  is  a  social  being.  The  ex- 
treme outpost  of  progress  in  this  direction  is  the 
recognition  that  the  individual  mind  in  the  sense  of 
the  Pure  Reason  psychology  of  two  or  three  decades 
ago  is  an  abstraction.  The  demonstration  that  man's 
existence  as  a  self-conscious  being  is  conditioned  on 
the  existence  of  other  objects,  some  conscious  and 
some  non-conscious,  is  the  highest  point  yet  reached 
in  the  discovery  of  the  integratedness  of  nature — in 
attaching  a  clear  meaning  to  the  phrase  the  system  of 
nature;  for  it  reveals  not  only  physical  man,  man  with 
the  attributes  of  size,  form,  weight  and  physical  and 
chemical  activity,  but  also  spiritual  man,  man  with  the 
attributes  through  which  are  created  the  fine  arts, 
literature,  the  physical  and  social  sciences,  religion 
and  so  on,  as  an  integral  part  of  the  system. 

That  this  contention  that  the  series  of  bio-integra- 
tions thus  briefly  sketched,  extending  without  interrup- 
tion from  the  very  chemico-physical  and  cytological 
basis  of  organisms  up  through  the  whole  living  world 
to  the  most  complex  phenomena  presented  by  civilized 
man  in  society,  constitutes  the  biological  groundwork 
of  a  science  of  morals,  I  earnestly  commend  to  all 


98  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

thoughtful  persons,  especially  to  biologists  and 
ethicists. 

Contenting  myself  now  with  the  mere  dogmatic  asser- 
tion of  the  great  importance  to  ethics  of  the  biological 
discoveries  thus  called  attention  to,  I  devote  myself  to 
pointing  out  conditions  in  the  civilization  of  our  day 
that  ought  to  set  every  student  of  biology,  no  matter 
in  what  department,  to  inquiring  earnestly  what  his 
professional  obligations  are  as  touching  the  moral  wel- 
fare of  the  race.  I  venture  to  express  the  view  that  the 
utter  indifference  of  many  well-stationed  biologists 
toward  these  matters  is  prima  facie  evidence  not  merely 
of  social  recreancy  on  the  part  of  these  persons,  but  of 
grave  defect  in  the  fundamentals  of  their  scientific 
point  of  view. 

I  wonder  if  we  men  of  science  are  viewing  with  as 
much  complaisance,  even  levity,  as  we  pretend  to,  the 
bizarre  growths  in  the  realm  of  man's  religious  instincts 
that  flourish  so  luxuriantly  all  about  us?  I  suspect 
a  considerable  number  of  us  are  beginning  to  question 
whether  the  whole  thing  is  as  much  of  a  joke  as  we 
had  supposed ;  whether  indeed  these  growths  may  not 
be  something  more  than  a  few  scudding  clouds  in  the 
prevailing  clear  sky  of  our  modern  rationality.  But 
even  if  attention  has  been  arrested  to  this  extent,  I 
find  little  indication  that  men  of  science  regard  the 
matter  as  a  real  phenomenon  of  modern  civilization, 
and  as  such  deserving  attentive  study.  Indeed  it  seems 
as  though  excessive  specialization  in  scientific  discipline 


Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of  Morals      99 

is  schooling  students  away  from  the  ability  to  take  broad 
expanses  of  diverse  natural  facts  into  a  single  view 
and  then  to  push  analysis  under  perpetual  guidance  of 
the  dominating  whole.  Instead  of  treating  jocularly, 
as  we  have  been  wont  to  do,  these  religious  vagaries, 
is  there  not  ample  ground  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
for  taking  them  as  proof  that  man's  religion-producing 
instincts  are  bound  to  assert  themselves  in  one  way 
or  another,  and  that  if  they  are  not  recognized  and 
guided  to  some  extent  by  reason,  by  science,  they  are 
prone  to  develop  into  such  misshapen  forms,  even  such 
monstrosities,  as  we  are  seeing?  Surely  it  is  not  the 
spirit  of  science  at  its  best  to  treat  all  phenomena  as  a 
joke  that  do  not  come  easily  within  its  pre-established 
doctrinal  boundaries.  If  there  is  one  thing  more  than 
any  other  that  ought  to  characterize  science  as  con- 
trasted with  dogma,  it  should  be  its  perfect  readiness 
to  revise  its  fundamental  conceptions  at  the  behest  of 
indubitable  evidence. 

That  the  great  range  of  manifestations  which  has 
Billy  Sundayism  at  one  end  of  one  main  axis  and  the 
mystical  tendencies  in  liberal  Christianity  at  the  other; 
and  on  another  axis  has  Christian  Science  at  one  end 
and  the  transplantation  of  Oriental  occultism  into  the 
west  at  the  other  end,,  is  in  reality  one  coherent  system 
of  phenomena,  seems  not  to  have  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  many  observers.  And  how  many  biologists,  or 
even  sociologists,  are  taking  notice  of  the  great  vogue 
in  this  country  of  writings  on  astrology  and  are  con- 


100  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

nee  ting  this  in  any  way  with  the  "return  to  religion" 
which,  according  to  the  testimony  of  many  witnesses, 
is  so  conspicuous  in  Europe  under  the  ordeal  she  is 
passing  through?  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  New 
Thought  movement?  Why  does  it  flourish  so?  Has 
it  any  relation  to  these  various  other  things  to  which 
reference  has  been  made?  No  student  who  will  regard 
all  these  phenomena  in  the  light  of  the  revelations  of 
modern  research  into  cultural  anthropology,  and  of 
what  psychologists  are  teaching  us  about  the  psy- 
chology of  religion,  can  fail,  I  believe,  to  recognize  that 
none  of  man's  attributes  are  more  deep-rooted  and 
wide-spreading  than  the  group  which  makes  him  what 
we  call  religious.  Nor  can  he  fail  to  be  convinced,  if 
he  examines  these  manifestations  attentively,  that  they 
all  belong  to  this  realm. 

No  one,  especially  no  one  in  a  company  of  natural- 
ists, needs  to  be  reminded  of  the  traditional  enmity 
between  theology  and  science.  With  the  monumental 
work  of  Andrew  D.  White  as  part  of  the  working 
library  of  all  English-speaking  men  of  science,  it  may 
be  taken  for  granted  that  so  far  as  concerns  the  his- 
toric aspect  of  this  matter,  information  is  ample  and 
judgments  are  clearly  drawn.  As  touching  present 
conditions  and  future  possibilities  and  probabilities, 
the  case  is  quite  otherwise.  Many  of  us  have  lulled 
ourselves  into  somnolence  on  this  matter  by  believing 
that  the  victory  of  science  is  at  last  complete.  But  the 
time  seems  opportune  for  words  of  warning.  How 


Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of  Morals     101 

many  persons  were  there  in  the  whole  United  States 
three  years  ago  who  did  not  fully  believe  that  such  a 
conflict  as  is  raging  to-day  in  Europe  was  both  physic- 
ally and  morally  impossible  or  at  most  only  remotely 
probable?  Shall  we,  men  of  science,  especially  drilled 
in  the  difficult  art  of  impersonal  observation  and  fore- 
casting, fail  to  learn  from  the  many  lessons  now  before 
us  how  mighty  and  ineradicable  are  the  great  primal 
instincts  of  the  human  species?  Is  an  era  of  priestly 
and  ecclesiastical  domination  more  inconceivable  to-day 
than,  a  few  months  ago,  was  such  an  outbreak  of  the 
fighting  impulse  as  we  are  now  witnessing?  Any  one 
disposed  to  scoff  at  this  query  would  do  well  to  turn 
an  attentive  eye  upon  the  indications  of  a  renewal  of 
life  in  quarters  where  religious  dogma  is  still  enforced 
by  churchly  authority. 

Concerned  as  I  am  here  with  the  problem  of  morals, 
I  would  have  preferred  not  to  touch  this  chronic  open 
sore  on  the  body  of  civilization,  this  conflict  between 
science  and  theology.  Nor  should  I  do  so  but  for  the 
fact  now  coming  into  clearer  outline  than  ever  before, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  treat  the  problem  of  morals 
with  anything  approaching  adequacy  without  passing 
into  the  domain  of  religion.  This  truth  is  now  coming 
into  clearness  just  because  the  problems  of  both  morals 
and  religion  are  getting  themselves  more  scientifically 
treated  than  ever  before. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  effort  toward  a  science  of 

O 

morals,  in  the  purely  analytic  stage,  when  morals  and 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

religion  were  first  sharply  differentiated  from  each 
other;  when  the  significance  of  the  historic  truth  that 
religion  may  be  highly  immoral  while  a  high  moral  plane 
may  be  reached  with  little  mingling  of  religion,  the  dis- 
position on  the  part  of  some  students  was  to  believe  in 
the  complete  dissociation  of  the  two.  Now,  however, 
that  the  scientific  study  of  both  realms  is  becoming 
synthetic  as  well  as  analytic,  the  deeper  insight  is  being 
reached  that  while  there  is  a  positive  distinctness  be- 
tween morals  and  religion,  and  a  kind  of  separateness, 
yet  the  two  are  correlated  and  interlocked  in  the  most 
complex  fashion.  Absolute  disjunction  of  the  two 
provinces  is  no  longer  to  be  thought  of.  In  this  the 
traditional  teaching  of  Christianity  is  right. 

This  brings  us  to  where  the  essence  of  what  I  am 
trying  to  set  forth  can  be  put  into  a  nutshell.  All 
progress  toward  a  system  of  morals  capable  of  stand- 
ing the  strain  of  modern  civilization  has  been  toward  a 
scientific  morality;  that  is  toward  a  natural  morality. 
But  the  truth  has  been  repeatedly  pointed  out  by 
recent  students  that  in  the  past  the  most  influential 
moral  systems  have  depended  upon  belief  in  the  super- 
natural  for  their  highest  enlightenment  as  to  moral 
duty,  and  for  executive  power  in  the  enforcement  of 
moral  mandates.  In  a  word,  the  chief  moral  doctrines 
of  the  past  have  been  rooted  in  faith  in  a  supernatural 
order  rather  than  in  faith  in  the  natural  order.  But 
progress  in  civilization  has  now  reached  a  stage  in 
which  a  system  of  morals  resting  finally  on  belief  in 


Biology's  Contribution  to  a  Theory  of  Morals     106 

the  supernatural  is  breaking  down.  Further  progress 
in  our  type  of  civilization  is  dependent  upon  the  adop- 
tion of  a  well-rounded  system  of  natural  morality. 
Splendid  progress  in  this  direction  has  already  been 
made,  and  so  far  as  the  domain  of  moral  doctrine  itself 
is  concerned  there  would  seem  to  be  no  great  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  continuing  on  the  same  road.  But  the 
moment  advance  in  natural  morals  comes  squarely  face 
to  face  with  the  problem  of  faith  in  the  supernatural 
groundwork  of  morals,  it  touches  the  exceedingly  sensi- 
tive spot  of  man's  religious  faith  in  the  supernatural; 
and  right  here  trouble  begins. 

A  point  which  I  wish  to  insist  upon — though  to  pre- 
sent it  in  detail  is  quite  beyond  the  possibilities  of  an 
essay  like  this — is  that  a  conception  of  nature  worked 
out  fully  and  freely  in  the  synthetic  as  well  as  in  the 
analytic  way ;  that  is,  in  conformity  with  the  universal 
integratedness  of  nature,  as  well  as  in  conformity  with 
nature's  differentiatedness,  would  satisfy  those  basal 
instincts  of  man  upon  which  religion  rests  no  less  cer- 
tainly and  fully  than  it  would  furnish  an  adequate 
basis  for  morality.  The  greatest  defect  in  natural 
science  is,  I  am  quite  sure,  its  failure  clearly  to  recog- 
nize that  its  conception  of  nature  must  be  comprehen- 
sive enough  to  include  man  in  the  fulness  of  his  being. 
During  the  last  half-century  the  achievements  of  sci- 
ence in  making  out  what  man's  place  in  nature  is,  are 
of  incalculable  importance.  The  next  great  task  for 
science  is  to  show  what  nature  is  because  man  is  a  part 


104  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

of  it.  One  consequence  of  the  accomplishment  of  this 
task  will  be  a  system  of  morals  immeasurably  richer 
than  that  under  which  civilization  is  now  floundering. 
The  second  essay  of  this  volume  is  a  small  contribution 
to  the  task. 


THE  PLACE  OF  DESCRIPTION,  DEFINITION 
AND  CLASSIFICATION  IN  PHILO- 
SOPHICAL BIOLOGY* 

I.  Scientific  and  Logical  Aspect 

Empirical  theory  of  knowledge  tends  to  regard  de- 
tailed, complete  description  as  identical  with  explana- 
tion. (Professor  R.  Adamson.) 

...  it  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  define  logic  as 
the  theory  of  classification.  (W.  S.  Jevons.) 

Science  can  extend  only  so  far  as  the  power  of  accu- 
rate classification  extends.  If  we  can  not  detect  re- 
semblances and  assign  their  exact  character  and 
amount,  we  can  not  have  that  generalized  knowledge 
which  constitutes  science.  (W.  S.  Jevons.) 

...  the  mathematical  and  mathematico-physical 
sciences  have,  in  a  great  degree,  determined  men's  views 
of  the  general  nature  and  form  of  scientific  truth ;  while 
natural  history  has  not  yet  had  time  or  opportunity 
to  exert  its  due  influence  upon  the  current  habits  of 
philosophizing.  (Wm.  Whewell.) 

*A  modified  and  extended  paper  read  before  a  naturalists* 
meeting  of  the  Pacific  Division  of  the  American  Association  for 
the  Advancement  of  Science,  at  Berkeley,  California,  August  3, 
1915. 

105 


106  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

1WISH  to  point  out  in  the  briefest  way  possible  the 
vital  importance  to  biology  of  the  truth  of  these 
statements. 

We  are  familiar  with  the  view  that  the  transition 
from  the  pre-Darwinian  to  the  Darwinian  era  of  biology 
was  accompanied  by  a  complete  revolution  of  concep- 
tion as  to  the  significance  and  value  of  our  systems  of 
classification  of  living  beings.  The  current  notion  is 
that  the  old  taxonomy  was  superficial  in  that  it  was 
merely  descriptive,  but  that,  with  the  oncoming  of  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  it  became  profound  because  it 
then  became  a  record  of  evolution.  While  formerly 
we  are  wont  to  say,  the  schemes  of  classification  were 
only  logical,  or  verbal,  those  of  the  present  era  are 
truly  scientific,  because  natural;  and  they  are  natural 
because  based  on  genetic  kinship.  And  in  the  minds 
of  many  biologists  the  still  further  notion  has  gained 
lodgment  that  systematic  zoology  and  botany  should 
be  looked  upon  as  marking  the  juvenile  period  in  the 
life  of  biology;  and  as  having  been  outgrown  and  left 
behind  when  evolution  came,  something  as  a  boy's  fal- 
setto voice  and  beardless  face  are  left  behind  when 
adolescence  is  reached.  It  is  this  view,  I  suppose, 
which  makes  many  a  present-day  biologist  feel  that  if 
by  chance  he  is  caught  having  anything  to  do  with 
description  and  classification,  he  must  explain  that  it  is 
only  a  little  by-play  with  him,  that  he  is  not  really 
interested  in  it,  it  being  too  small  a  matter  to  merit 
the  full  occupancy  of  his  manly  powers. 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology    107 

I  want  to  show  three  things :  first,  exactly  what  has 
happened  to  taxonomy  as  biology  has  progressed;  sec- 
ond, something  of  the  monstrousness  of  the  fallacy  into 
which  biologists  have  fallen  in  conceiving  taxonomy  as 
an  outgrown  stage  in  the  development  of  biology ;  and 
third,  something  of  the  wretched  consequences  that 
have  resulted  from  the  fall. 

A  quotation  from  Huxley's  "Owen's  Position  in  the 
History  of  Anatomical  Science"  may  serve  as  a  start- 
ing point  of  the  discussion : 

"The  classifications  of  the  scientific  taxonomist  are 
of  two  kinds.  Those  of  the  one  sort  are  merely  handy 
reference  catalogues.  .  .  .  The  others,  known  as 
natural  classifications,  are  arrangements  of  objects 
according  to  the  sum  total  of  their  likenesses,  in  re- 
spect of  certain  characters.  .  .  .  And  natural  classi- 
fication is  of  perennial  importance,  because  the  con- 
struction of  it  is  the  same  thing  as  the  accurate  gen- 
eralization of  the  facts  of  form,  or  the  establishment  of 
the  empirical  laws  of  the  correlation  of  structure." 

That  which  makes  taxonomic  biology  as  practised 
by  many  systematists  genuinely  superficial,  and  has  so 
depreciated  its  value  in  the  minds  of  many  biologists,, 
is  failure  to  distinguish  sharply  and  see  the  profound 
significance  of  the  difference  between  the  two  sorts  of 
classification  referred  to  by  Huxley.  The  sort  of  classi- 
fication which  he  calls  "merely  handy  reference  cata- 


108  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

logues,"  I  call  synoptic  classification,  and  remind  the 
reader  that  such  classification  rests  upon  synoptic  de- 
scription. The  other  sort  of  classification,  said  by 
Huxley  to  be  of  "perennial  importance,  because  the 
construction  of  it  is  the  same  thing  as  the  accurate 
generalization  of  the  facts  of  form,"  I  call  analytic 
classification,  and  ask  the  reader  to  note  that  it  rests 
on  analytic  description,  just  as  synoptic  classification 
rests  on  synoptic  description.  And  here  I  must  state 
that  analytic  description  and  classification  will  include 
considerably  more,  as  I  use  them,  than  was  included  by 
Huxley  in  his  second  sort  of  classification. 

In  order  to  bring  into  clearer  view  the  close  kinship 
between  the  biological  and  the  logical  aspects  of  our 
subject,  we  shall  so  choose  our  language  as  to  fix  atten- 
tion quite  as  much  on  the  meaning  of  the  names  used, 
as  on  the  natural  objects  to  which  the  names  are 
applied. 

If  any  one  is  disposed  to  shy  at  the  proposal  thus  to 
connect  biology  with  logic,  he  may  be  reminded  of  a 
dictum  of  one  of  the  most  famous  and  also  the  most 
objective  of  biologists,  Cuvier.  "In  order  to  name 
well,  you  must  know  well,"  said  the  father  of  compara- 
tive anatomy.  The  import  of  this  straightforward 
statement  is  that  natural  science  deals  with  natural 
objects  and  that  the  names  of  these  objects  are  the 
instruments  by  which  the  work  is  done.  As  a  specu- 
lator, Cuvier  did  not  escape  the  common  weakness  of 
the  class,  that  of  permitting  Ideas  so  to  intrude  them- 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology    109 

selves  between  object  and  name  as  to  prevent  assurance 
that  the  two  should  really  fit  each  other;  but  as  nat- 
uralist he  stood  firmly  for  the  practise  of  making  both 
knowing  and  naming  apply  very  directly  to  the  object. 
So  far  he  was  on  the  road  to  the  sound  position  later 
definitely  taken  by  J.  S.  Mill  as  a  logician,  that  common 
sense  is  right  in  calling  the  word  which  stands  for  an 
object  the  name  of  the  object,  and  not  merely  the  name 
of  our  idea  of  the  object. 

Biology  and  logic,  as  understood  in  this  discussion, 
have  very  much  in  common  in  that  biology  can  do 
nothing  with  the  natural  objects  which  are  its  subject 
matter  except  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  great 
lot  of  names ;  while  logic  can  do  nothing  really  signifi- 
cant with  names  of  ideas  concerning  living  beings  unless 
those  ideas  have  their  exact  counterparts  in  the  objects 
themselves. 

To  be  explicit,  we  shall  deal  with  the  description, 
definition  and  classification  of  man;  but  instead  of  do- 
ing this  in  the  usual  terminology  of  the  systematist,  we 
shall  talk  about  the  meaning  of  the  word  "man." 

Imagine  a  normal  child  born  on  an  oceanic  island, 
the  only  animal  inhabitants  of  which  are  its  mother 
and  itself;  and  imagine  further  that  the  mother,  an 
educated  woman,  has  taught  her  child  all  sorts  of 
things,  except  about  other  human  beings  or  other  ani- 
mals. Not  the  smallest  fragment  of  information  has 
she  imparted  to  the  child  about  its  own  kind,  other 
than  its  mother.  What  would  be  the  character  of  the 


110  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

child's  knowledge  of  humankind?  Does  any  one  ques- 
tion that  it  would  be  considerable,  definite  and  real? 
Would  not  the  child  know  its  mother's  form  and  coun- 
tenance and  voice,  and  many  other  things  about  her, 
just  as  well  as  though  it  knew  innumerable  other  peo- 
ple? Unquestionably.  It  would  have  a  descriptive, 
but  no  definite  knowledge  of  man,  except  in  so  far  as 
the  knowledge  of  itself  would  be  differentiated  from  its 
knowledge  of  its  mother. 

Authorities  on  logic  make  a  good  deal  of  the  point 
that  "the  concrete  individual  object  can  be  described, 
but  not  defined."  And  they  say,  furthermore,  that 
description  is  synonymous  with  "accidental  definition," 
this  latter  being  again  defined  as  assigning  the  "acci- 
dents" of  an  individual.  But  since  the  "accidents"  of 
an  object  have  been,  according  to  much  historical  logic, 
set  over  against  its  "essence,"  "accidents"  have  usually 
been  treated  by  logic  as  a  sort  of  Cinderella,  the 
homely,  despised  sister,  in  the  family  of  so-called 
Predicables. 

I  find  justification  for  going  thus  much  into  logical 
doctrine  in  the  fact  that  recent  biology  has  shown  a 
strong  tendency  to  follow  formal  logic  in  exalting 
essence  and  despising  accidents. 

The  practical  point  to  be  brought  out  is  this:  no 
matter  how  insignificant,  or  obscure,  or  transitory, 
may  be  a  certain  attribute  of  an  object,  in  so  far  as  that 
attribute  is  positively  and  repeatedly  observed,  it  fur- 
nishes just  as  trustworthy  a  piece  of  knowledge  about 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology     111 

that  object,  as  any  attribute  whatever  can  furnish. 

Suppose  the  mother  of  our  hypothetical  island  child 
had  a  mole  on  her  chin;  or  that  the  sunshine  brought 
out  freckles  on  her  nose  which  disappeared  again  dur- 
ing the  winter.  These  marks  would  be  accidents,  ac- 
cording to  logic;  and  biologically  regarded  would  be 
quite  insignificant.  But  they  would  be  as  indubitable 
elements  in  the  child's  knowledge  of  its  mother  as  any 
other  elements  that  can  be  mentioned. 

Let  me  ask  any  reader  who  is  "keen"  enough  on  the 
different  kinds  of  automobiles  to  be  able  to  distinguish 
most  of  the  "makes"  as  they  are  passed  on  the  road, 
what  marks  he  relies  on  for  identifying  each  type  of 
car?  Is  it  not  true  that  in  most  cases  you  depend  upon 
one  or  a  few  very  trivial  things  ?  Color  comes  in ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  one  finds  himself  giving  less  attention  for 
identification  purposes  to  this  conspicuous  attribute 
than  to  others  far  less  conspicuous.  Just  now  the 
shape  and  color,  not  the  name,  of  the  manufacturer's 
plate  placed  on  the  radiator  of  so  many  machines,  is  a 
good  identification  mark  for  machines  coming  toward 
one.  For  the  rear  view  of  a  machine  with  the  top  up, 
the  number  and  shape  of  the  window  panes  in  the  back 
curtain  are  useful  marks. 

The  purely  logical  points  deserving  emphasis  in  this 
familiar  but  typical  case  are :  first,  the  trustworthiness 
of  the  identification  marks  in  spite  of  their  triviality. 
The  number  and  shape  of  the  windows  in  the  back  cur- 
tain are  just  as  positive  and  real  as  traits,  that  is, 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

logically  regarded,  they  are  just  as  important  attri- 
butes of  a  particular  class  of  machines  as  the  number 
and  shape  of  the  cylinders;  and  second,  the  fact  that 
using  the  marks  in  the  way  we  do  is  purely  descriptive, 
so  far  as  concerns  the  recognition  of  an  individual  ma- 
chine, but  is  definitive  in  so  far  as  that  machine  is 
differentiated  from  any  other  kind  of  machine.  Had 
there  never  been  more  than  one  automobile  made,  so 
that  then  there  could  be  no  question  of  distinguishing 
it  from  others  of  its  kind,  the  windows  would  still  be  no 
less  positive  and  real,  though,  manifestly,  they  would 
not  then;  furnish  distinguishing  traits  within  the  general 
class  automobiles.  But  here  there  comes  to  view  a  dif- 
ference of  the  utmost  importance  between  the  way  at- 
tributes are  definitive  of  man-made  objects  like  auto- 
mobiles, and  natural  living  objects  like  men.  In  the 
first  class  of  objects  we  are  perfectly  sure  that  many, 
usually  most,  of  the  attributes  which  the  old  logic 
would  call  accidents  had  no  genuinely  dependent  rela- 
tion to  most  of  the  other  attributes  of  the  object;  while 
in  living  beings,  especially  of  the  higher  classes,  we  are 
now  certain  that  the  great  majority,  if  not  all,  the 
attributes,  even  those  which  formal  logic  would  call 
accidents,  are  in  vital  relation  with  many,  usually  very 
many,  other  attributes.  Thus  recurring  to  the  shapes 
of  back  curtain  windows  in  automobiles  and  freckles  on 
the  nose  of  our  hypothetical  island  mother,  we  know 
that  the  former  have  no  fundamental  relation  to  the 
more  essential  attributes  of  the  machines,  as,  for  ex- 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology    113 

ample,  the  style  of  engine  or  carburetor  or  magneto; 
while  on  the  other  hand  we  know  with  equal  certainty 
that  freckles  are  vitally  related  to,  indeed  are  wholly 
dependent  upon,  various  other  attributes,  notably  the 
attribute  known  as  complexion,  which  again  is  vitally 
related  to  the  blood  system,  and  so  on. 

There  are  few,  if  any,  points  at  which  biology  is  more 
at  sea  than  in  this  very  matter  of  the  factual  and 
logical,  i.  e.,  the  objective  and  subjective  relation  of  the 
attributes  or  traits  of  organisms  to  one  another  and 
to  the  whole. 

We  now  return  to  the  problem  of  defining  the  word 
man.  By  the  time  any  normal  child  is  four  or  five 
years  old  he  is  in  possession  of  the  raw  materials  of  a 
fairly  comprehensive  and  entirely  reliable  description, 
a  less  extensive,  but  still  unequivocal,  definition,  and  the 
first  of  the  essentials  of  a  classification  of  man.  He 
positively  knows  some  of  the  attributes  which  distin- 
guish a  man  from  a  house  or  a  rock;  some  of  those 
which  distinguish  him  from  a  tree;  probably  some  of 
those  which  distinguish  him  from  a  fly;  probably,  too, 
some  of  those  which  distinguish  him  from  a  chicken; 
and  almost  certainly  some  of  those  which  distinguish 
him  from  a  dog,  a  cat,  a  cow,  and  a  horse.  In  a  word, 
he  has  the  raw  material  for  the  synoptic  description 
and  classification  of  man;  that  is,  for  the  synoptic 
meaning  of  the  word  man. 

Attention  should  here  be  called  to  the  fact  that  the 
synoptic  classification  of  man  as  elementary  biological 


114  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

instruction  presents  it  is  apt  to  be  slighted  at  its  two 
ends.     Too  frequently,  the  beginning  is  made  with: 

Kingdom,  Animal,  and  runs  on: 

Province,  Metazoa. 

Phylum,  Vertebrata. 

Class,  Mammalia. 

Order,  Primates. 

Genus,  Homo  .  .  .  and  end  with 

Species,  Sapiens. 

The  point  of  criticism  is  that  the  super  kingdom,  the' 
Empire  (if  our  terminology  must  retain  its  ancient 
monarchic  coloring),  is  not  constantly  enough  included 
at  the  broad  end ;  and  at  the  narrow  end  the  subspecies 
or  variety  is  more  frequently  slighted  than  it  ought  to 
be;  and  from  the  very  apex  the  individual  is  almost 
entirely  ignored. 

"Empire,  Living  Being,  or  Organism,  or  Bios"  ought 
to  be  always  included  as  the  logician's  genus  generalissi- 
mum;  and,  at  the  other  end,  "Individual,  Eleanor, 
Ezra,"  etc.,  ought  to  be  always  included  as  the  logi- 
cians species  specialissima  or  infima  species. 

The  synoptic  description,  definition  and  classifica- 
tion of  man  would  then  be :  any  natural  body  which  is 
multicellular,  has  a  vertebral  column,  suckles  its  young, 
habitually  walks  erect  on  its  hind  limbs  and  uses  its 
fore  limbs  for  prehension,  and  talks  rationally.  And 
this  is,  too,  both  a  biological  and  a  logical  meaning  of 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology    115 

the  word  man. 

It  is  desirable  to  raise  the  question  at  this  point  as 
to  the  difference  between  the  biological  and  the  logical 
meaning  of  the  term  man.  The  kernel  of  the  difference 
seems  to  me  statable  thus :  The  briefest  possible  biolog- 
ical meaning  of  the  word  spreads  it  out,  as  one  might 
say,  evenly  over  the  whole  living  world,  while  the  brief- 
est possible  logical  meaning  does  not  do  this.  The 
insular  mother  whom  we  invoked  in  imagination  may  be 
supposed  to  teach  her  child  formal  logic,  and,  in  so 
doing,  to  make  use  of  herself  and  her  child  to  illustrate 
the  logician's  use  of  the  terms  genus  and  species.  She 
might  say  to  the  child: 

"You  and  I  are  natural  bodies  like  the  rocks  and  the 
clouds ;  but  since  we  talk  with  each  other,  a  thing  which 
neither  rocks  nor  clouds  can  do,  we  are  particular 
kinds  of  natural  bodies.  When  bodies  stand  in  such 
relation  as  this  to  one  another,  we,  as  logicians,  speak 
of  them  as  being  in  the  relation  of  genus  and  species." 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  this  example,  if  supplemented 
by  others  of  like  import  that  might  be  drawn  from  in- 
animate nature,  could  be  made  to  satisfy  completely 
the  needs  of  formal  logic  as  touching  its  doctrines  of 
naming,  defining,  dividing,  classifying.  In  a  word, 
formal  logic  is  not  obliged  to  take  cognizance  of  the 
fact  that  living  nature  contains  any  organisms  other 
than  man  himself.  Logic  is  something  that  can  be  used 


116  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

upon  living  beings  generally  with  great  effect — some- 
thing that  can  occupy  itself  very  interestingly  and 
profitably  with  such  things,  but  it  is  not  obliged  to 
be  so  used. 

Logic  goes  to  nature  to  get  illustrations  of  how 
thought  works  rather  than  actually  to  learn  nature. 
Reverting  to  Jevons's  sttement  that  logic  may  be  de- 
fined as  the  theory  of  classification,  we  may  remark 
that,  so  far  as  external  nature  is  concerned,  while  logic 
may  be  defined  as  the  theory  of  classification,  it  can  not 
be  defined  as  the  practise  of  classification.  It  is  im- 
portant to  call  attention  to  this  distinction  between 
logic  and  biology  since  even  biologists  frequently  fail 
to  recognize  it  and  are  beguiled  into  trying  to  impose 
the  laws  of  thought  upon  nature  by  asserting  that 
such  and  such  a  supposition  about  nature  is  a  "logical 
necessity."  Although  logic  is  so  important  to  the 
natural  scientist  as  an  instrument,  quite  as  important 
is  it  never  to  forget  that  it  is  only  an  instrument. 
Logic  is  one  of  the  many  children  of  nature;  it  is  not 
its  parent  or  ruler. 

A  practical  point  to  be  noticed  here  is  that  right 
regard  for  logic  in  the  business  of  the  taxonomist 
clearly  reveals  both  the  unwarrantableness  and  misfor- 
tune of  the  view,  so  widely  held,  that  synoptic  descrip- 
tions and  classifications  are  artificial  or  puerile,  and 
devoid  of  scientific  value.  If  such  a  definition  of  man 
as  that  just  given  does  not  express  his  nature — is  not 
a  natural  definition — in  what  terms,  pray,  can  he  be 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology    117 

naturally  defined?  The  definition  is  natural,  but 
meager.  This  and  not  its  artificiality  is  its  fault;  and 
from  this  fault  arises  the  need  for  the  second  kind  of 
classification  spoken  of  at  the  outset. 

To  this  other  sort  of  classification  and  the  second 
meaning  of  the  word  man,  we  now  turn.  Logic  lays 
great  stress  on  the  difference  between  extension  and 
intension  in  the  meaning  of  names.  When  the  word 
man  is  merely  thought  of  as  applying  to  the  individuals 
of  the  human  species,  its  meaning  in  extension  is  before 
us.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  thought  goes  to  the  at- 
tributes of  man,  to  what  makes  him  a  man,  rather  than 
to  individual  men,  it  is  occupied  with  the  meaning  in 
intension  of  the  word. 

Now,  as  to  our  point  about  the  second,  the  analytic 
classification  of  man — the  analytic  meaning  of  the 
word  man.  Let  us  begin  with  the  reminder  that  mean- 
ing in  intension  is  concerned  not  with  the  mere  naming 
of  objects,  but  with  the  attributes  of  the  objects  named. 

Let  the  reader  recall  that  taxonomic  research  in 
both  zoology  and  botany  has  for  years,  so  far  as  it  has 
been  based  on  morphology  exclusively,  taken  as  one  of 
its  guiding  principles  neglect  nothing.  This  means, 
stated  in  the  terms  of  logic,  that  this  aspect  of  tax- 
onomy has  incorporated  into  its  purpose  and  method, 
the  study  of  terms  in  their  intension.  This  is  really,  I 
believe,  what  was  in  Huxley's  mind,  at  least  in  the  back- 
ground of  it,  when  he  asserted  that  the  second  kind  of 
classification  is  the  "same  thing  as  the  accurate  gener- 


118  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

alization  of  the  facts  of  form." 

A  prime  object  of  this  paper  is  to  contend  that 
biology  has  now  reached  a  stage  in  its  progress  where 
we  can  no  longer  restrict  our  dictum  "neglect  nothing" 
to  morphological  attributes,  as  the  above  quotation 
seems  to  take  for  granted,  but  must  extend  it  to  all 
attributes  of  organisms  whatever — morphological, 
physiological,  ecological,  chemical  and  all  the  rest. 
And  it  should  be  pointed  out  that  the  movement  of 
biology  in  this  direction  was  more  or  less  distinctly 
seen  by  at  least  one  biologist  nearly  a  century  ago, 
namely,  G.  R.  Treviranus.  "The  doctrine  of  organiza- 
tion," he  said,  "is  founded  upon  comparative  anatomy, 
or  the  systematic  distribution  of  living  bodies,  and  on 
organic  chemistry." 

I  believe  a  comprehensive  review  of  the  whole  range 
of  biological  results  won  during  the  last  five-and-twenty 
years,  let  us  say,  will  convince  any  one  that  each  of  the 
main  provinces  of  research — comparative  physiology, 
ecology,  experimental  behavior,  genetics  and  biochem- 
istry, no  less  than  histology,  cytology,  embryology  and 
regeneration,  would  furnish  differentia  for  a  classifica- 
tion of  the  organisms  used  in  the  researches ;  or  at  least 
that  they  contain  differentia  corresponding  to  the  sys- 
tems of  classification  previously  established  on  the  basis 
of  pure  morphology. 

What  does  this  signify  for  the  attitude  of  biologists 
toward  their  problems,  and  for  methods  and  enterprises 
of  research? 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology     119 

It  signifies  many  things,  one  of  which  particularly 
concerns  us  now,  and  may  be  put  into  the  following 
general  proposition:  No  biological  phenomenon  is  ade- 
quately interpreted  or  dealt  with  experimentally,  until 
it  has  been  considered  with  reference  to  the  place  that 
the  organisms  to  which  it  pertains  hold  in  the  system  of 
classification.  To  illustrate,  no  generalization  about 
the  chromosomal  structure  and  behavior  in  the  sperma- 
togenesis  of  species  #  of  genus  a  can  be  accepted  as 
fully  valid  until  compared  with  the  chromosomal  struc- 
ture and  behavior  of  species  m,  n,  o,  p,  etc.,  of  the 
same  genus.  And  a  like  restriction  must  be  placed  on 
generalization  about  the  reaction  of  species  x  to  light, 
or  to  any  other  stimulus,  or  to  its  distribution  in  na- 
ture, and  so  on. 

To  undertake  the  recital  of  special  researches  in 
support  of  this  proposition  would  be  to  undertake  the 
review  of  most  of  the  recent  investigations  in  the  prov- 
inces of  biology  mentioned.  And  notice  this :  The  re- 
sults of  these  researches  look  in  the  direction  indicated 
despite  the  fact  that  in  most  cases  the  studies  had  little 
or  no  systematic  aim.  The  great  amount  of  evidence 
of  this  purport  is  mostly  incidental  to  other  motives 
of  investigation. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  advancing  the  hypoth- 
esis that  every  species  of  plants  and  animals  differs 
from  every  other  species  to  some  extent  in  every  attri- 
bute. What  I  affirm  is  that  the  inductive  evidence  has 
now  gone  so  far  toward  proving  every  sharply  differ- 


120  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

entiated  species  to  contain  some  differentia  in  all  the 
main  provinces  of  their  structure  and  function,  that  to 
assume  the  absence  of  such  differentia  in  any  given 
case,  is  unwarranted. 

Although  in  the  interests  of  practical  biology  it  is 
desirable  that  a  searching  examination  of  the  whole 
range  of  biological  knowledge  should  be  made  from  the 
taxonomist's  standpoint,  for  a  short  theoretical  dis- 
cussion like  that  in  which  we  are  now  engaged  all  that 
is  incumbent  upon  us  is  to  look,  and  that  only  cur- 
sorily, into  a  single  province  of  biology,  namely,  bio- 
chemistry. This  is  all  that  is  necessary,  I  say,  because 
the  analysis  of  all  phenomena  of  life  into  chemistry  and 
physics  being  the  ultimate  goal  of  biology  according  to 
the  now  dominant  biological  philosophy,  if  it  turns  out 
that  the  chemical  analysis  is  exhaustive  only  when  done 
on  the  basis  of  taxonomy,  then  it  would  seem  to  follow 
necessarily  that  all  phenomena  of  structure  and  func- 
tion intervening  between  the  grosser  morphological 
features  with  which  taxonomy  has  for  the  most  part 
busied  itself,  and  the  ultimate  physico-chemical  fea- 
tures, must  also  be  brought  to  a  taxonomic  basis  before 
they  are  exhaustive. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better  example  of 
weightiness  of  inductive  evidence  as  dependent  upon 
cumulation  in  particular  lines,  and  convergence  of  dif- 
ferent lines,  than  that  presented  by  biochemistry  bear- 
ing on  the  hypothesis  here  under  consideration.  Con- 
cerning the  evidence  of  the  chemical  differentiation  of 


Place  of  Definition)  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology 

species  drawn  from  investigations  on  the  blood  of  higher 
animals,  recall  the  results  of  Reichert  and  Brown  on 
the  crystallization  of  hemoglobin.  Here  is  one  of  their 
statements  : 


"Each  form,  #-oxyhemoglobin,  &-oxyhemoglobin, 
etc.,  appears  always  in  its  own  proper  form  and  axial 
ratio  when  the  blood  of  different  individuals  of  the 
same  species  is  examined.  .  .  .  But  upon  comparing 
the  corresponding  substances  in  different  species  of  a 
genus,  it  is  generally  found  that  they  differ  one  from 
the  other  to  a  greater  or  less  degree;  the  differences 
being  such  that  when  complete  crystallographic  data 
are  at  hand  the  species  can  be  distinguished  by  these 
differences  in  their  hemoglobins." 

Let  us  assume  there  is  ground  for  questioning  the 
full  trustworthiness  of  this  conclusion.  Notice  the 
strong  presumption  of  its  general  reliability  produced 
by  its  accordance  with  evidence  from  a  wholly  different 
kind  of  research  on  the  serum  of  blood,  namely,  that  on 
the  precipitin  reaction;  and  from  still  another  kind, 
namely,  that  on  the  hemolytic  action  of  one  blood  upon 
another.  Nor  should  we  fail  to  recognize  the  converg- 
ence of  evidence  for  chemical  specificity  of  organisms 
drawn  from  comparative  investigation  on  milk,  on  the 
enzymes  of  digestion,  and  from  such  direct  analyses  of 
organic  structure  as  those  of  the  sperm  of  many  spe- 
cies and  genera  of  fishes.  I  mention  only  one  other  line 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

of  evidence  of  like  purport  clearly  to  be  counted  as 
chemical,  though  not  usually  so  cited,  namely,  that  of 
the  odors  and  flavors  of  plants  and  animals.  This  is 
an  exceedingly  rich  field  of  inquiry,  even  though  diffi- 
cult of  cultivation  by  ordinary  laboratory  methods. 
The  methods  to  be  chiefly  relied  upon  here  are  those 
of  the  senses  of  smell  and  taste,  and  it  is  interesting 
to  reflect  that  there  is  available  for  utilization  not 
merely  these  senses  in  man,  but  in  animals  as  well. 
In  the  olfactory  sense  of  the  ant  and  the  scent  hunting 
dog,  for  example,  we  have  a  method  of  chemical  dis- 
crimination— of  qualitative  chemical  analysis  if  you 
please — which  seems  to  surpass  in  delicacy  anything 
laboratory  manipulation  can  hope  to  attain. 

Natural  history  and  biochemistry  are  being  inevita- 
bly drawn  together  by  the  very  nature  of  their  subject 
matter.  Descriptive  zoology  and  botany  are  becoming 
chemical  in  part,  and  biochemistry  is  becoming  zoolog- 
ical and  botanical  in  part.  Organisms  are  indeed  being 
"reduced  to  chemistry"  in  the  familiar  phrase ;  but  the 
statement  tells  only  half  the  story,  unless  it  specifies 
the  particular  chemistry  to  which  they  are  reduced. 
Each  kind  of  organism  has  a  chemistry  to  some  extent 
unique.  In  one  of  its  aspects  biochemistry  is  becoming 
a  subdivision,  or  branch,  of  systematic  zoology  and 
botany,  just  as  anatomy  has  been  for  a  long  time. 
"Almost  any  group  of  tissues,"  said  Minot,  "would 
offer  a  favorable  opportunity  for  the  discussion  of 
genetic  classification."  Apparently  the  same  may  be 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology 

said  of  biochemical  substances. 

Many  biologists  working  in  several  provinces  of  the 
organic  realm,  particularly  in  those  which,  like  cytology 
and  biochemistry  are  concerned  with  the  minute  and 
difficultly  observed  structure  and  functions  of  organ- 
isms, appear  to  be  laboring  under  the  delusion  that 
they  are  doing  something  totally  different  from  descrip- 
tion. They  seem  to  think  their  work  apart  from  and 
exalted  above  description  if  they  can  apply  the  terms 
analysis,  or  especially  causal  analysis,  to  it.  As  though 
the  treatment  of  causal  factors  which  are  intrinsic  in 
an  organism  were  not  part  of  the  description  of  that 
organism,  and  as  though  causal  factors  extrinsic  to 
the  organism;  that  is,  belonging  to  the  organism's 
environment,  were  essentially  a  part  of  biology  at  all! 
I  believe  full  and  unbiased  consideration  will  convince 
any  one  that  the  word  analysis,  occurring  so  frequently 
in  recent  biological  writings,  always  means  analytic 
description  and  classification,  as  these  terms  are  eluci- 
dated above,  if  it  has  any  objective  meaning  at  all.  It 
is  undoubtedly  true  that  as  touching  organisms  them- 
selves a  vast  amount  of  analysis  has  been  practised 
upon  them  that  is  not  descriptive ;  but  this  is  because  it 
is  purely  speculative — because  it  is  subjective  and  not 
objective.  Most  of  the  analysis  of  the  characters  of 
adult  organisms  into  "determinants,"  "determiners," 
"factors,"  etc.,  of  the  germ,  is  of  this  sort.  And  as 
touching  the  environments  of  organisms  it  is  a  remark- 
able thing,  once  one  comes  to  notice  it  duly,  that  the 


124<  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

results  of  innumerable  researches  have  been  published 
in  biological  journals  during  the  last  two  or  three 
decades,  that  were  not  in  a  strict  sense  biological.  The 
studies  were  undertaken  not  so  much  to  learn  the  nature 
of  organisms  as  to  test  the  properties  of  certain  phys- 
ical and  chemical  agents  in  respect  to  their  influence  on 
organisms.  Incidentally,  one  might  almost  say,  they 
have  brought  out  many  suggestive  facts  about  how 
organisms  may  behave  when  placed  under  unusual  and 
unnatural  conditions.  But  they  have  not  taught  us 
very  much  about  the  normal  behavior  of  normal 
organisms  under  normal  conditions.  Indeed,  a  consid- 
erable number  of  biologists  have  been  so  bewildered  by 
what  they  have  seen  and  by  their  mode  of  speculating, 
that  they  have  seriously  questioned  whether  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  normal  organism  in  a  normal  en- 
vironment ! 

The  sooner  it  is  borne  in  upon  the  minds  of  all  stu- 
dents of  living  beings,  no  matter  with  what  aspects  of 
such  beings  they  may  be  occupied,  that  they  are  en- 
gaged in  the  great  task  of  describing  and  classifying 
the  living  world ;  and,  so  far  as  "pure  biology"  is  con- 
cerned, are  doing  nothing  else,  the  sooner  will  objective 
biology  get  itself  set  off  from  subjective  biology  and 
the  sooner  will  philosophical  biology  become  purged  of 
the  many  morbific  growths  which  now  impair  its 
health  and  mar  its  beauty.  Never  more  than  in  this 
present  day  when  experimental  research  has  gained  so 
wide  and  lasting,  and,  on  the  whole,  beneficent  a  hold  in 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology    125 

biology,  has  there  been  need  of  fidelity  to  description 
and  classification.  Never  more  than  now,  I  say,  be- 
cause the  practical  work  of  experimentation  on  organ- 
isms does  not  promote  observance  of  the  classifier's 
watchword  "neglect  nothing."  Indeed,  when  the  experi- 
mental method  is  raised,  as  some  enthusiasts  try  to 
raise  it,  to  the  high  place  of  an  end  in  itself,  the  ten- 
dency is  rather  to  neglect  everything  except  the  one  or 
very  few  things  which  the  experimenter  must  of  neces- 
sity make  the  object  of  each  special  piece  of  work. 

Although  the  practical  biologist  knows  that  his  striv- 
ings after  explanation  are  utterly  futile  unless  always 
accompanied  by  description,  the  spell  of  subjectivistic 
metaphysics  is  still  so  strong  over  science  that  not 
many  biologists  have  yet  grasped  the  fact  that  all  true 
explanation  is  reached  through  description.  Investi- 
gators rarely  seem  to  notice  that  the  explanations  they 
propose  are  usually  in  reality  hypotheses,  and  that 
the  proof,  or  the  greater  or  less  probability  of  truth, 
of  these  explanations  (hypotheses)  is  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  the  accuracy  and  fullness  of  description  to 
which  the  organisms  are  subjected  in  the  aspects  of 
them  to  which  the  explanations  pertain.  Take  the 
classic  case  of  Goethe's  explanation  of  the  flower  as  a 
transformed  branch  with  its  leaves.  Is  it  not  true  that 
just  in  so  far  as  this  explanation  is  accepted  it  is  done 
on  the  basis  of  the  accepted  description  of  flowers  and 
branches  and  leaves?  If  a  true  explanation  of  cancer 
is  ever  reached  does  any  one  fail  to  recognize,  when  he 


126  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

thinks  about  the  matter,  that  it  must  come  in  the  form 
of  well-verified  description  and  classification  of  the 
whole  complex  of  organic  phenomena  implicated  in  the 
disease? 

A  true  though  incomplete  distinction  between  de- 
scription in  the  ordinary  sense  and  explanation  in  the 
ordinary  sense  is  that  the  process  of  describing  is  very 
little  guided  by  hypothesis,  while  explaining  is  very 
largely  so  guided. 

II.  Philosophical  and  Ethical  Aspect 

Early  in  the  paper,  I  promised  to  say  something 
about  the  baneful  effects  that  have  flowed  from  the 
neglect  by  modern  biology  of  the  principles  of  descrip- 
tion and  classification.  Sine  systeme  chaos,  is  the 
motto  standing  at  the  head  of  an  elaborate  recently 
published  work  on  the  arrangement  of  the  animal  king- 
dom. This  motto  should  be  adopted,  in  substance  at 
least,  for  any  and  every  comprehensive  biological 
treatise,  no  matter  in  what  field ;  and  I  insist  that  fail- 
ure to  adopt  it  has  thrown  the  speculative  biology  of 
our  time  into  a  literal  state  of  chaos. 

The  revolt  against  the  dry  and  formal  nomenclato- 
rialism  into  which  biology  had  wandered  in  the  period 
immediately  preceding  Darwin,  has  gone  so  far  as  prac- 
tically to  deny  that  many  of  the  really  best  established, 
most  important  names  in  biology  have  any  essential 
meaning  at  all.  Witness,  for  example,  the  effort  now 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology 

taking  shape  with  a  few  biologists,  notably  with  J.  S. 
Haldane,  "to  raise  the  term  organism  to  the  level  of  a 
category,"  as  Henderson  has  characterized  Haldane's 
undertaking.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  effort  is  to  re- 
store, not  originally  to  elevate  the  term,  for  a  study 
of  the  history  of  biological  theory  clearly  discloses  that 
the  term  organism  was  long  ago  accepted  as  a  category 
in  the  very  best  writings.  For  example,  whenever  the 
cell  is  interpreted  as  an  "elementary  organism,"  as  it 
usually  has  been  since  Briicke  first  conceived  it  thus, 
organism  is  acknowledged  to  be  a  "category" — a  real 
entity — of  biology. 

From  the  extreme  devotion  to  description  and  classi- 
fication which  characterized  the  older  biology,  the  new 
has  gone,  in  several  of  its  most  important  aspects,  to 
the  opposite  extreme  of  scarcely  any  accurate  descrip- 
tion and  classification  at  all.  Very  few  biologists  ap- 
pear to  have  considered  how  this  attitude  toward  sys- 
tematization  has  affected  philosophical  biology,  and 
especially  the  biology  of  man,  and  so  the  general  theo- 
ries of  human  life,  and  influence  upon  human  conduct. 

We  approach  here  a  matter  of  vast  scope,  one  alto- 
gether too  vast  to  be  more  than  touched  in  an  essay  like 
this.  But  there  is  one  segment  of  it  which,  though  lying 
close  to  the  field  of  biology  proper  and  of  great  impor- 
tance, appears  to  have  attracted  the  attention  of  pro- 
fessional biologists  but  little. 

I  refer  to  that  melange  ( the  thing  will  not  allow  itself 
to  be  called  a  system)  of  utterances  and  more  or  less 


128  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

definite  teachings  about  the  human  species  that  has  got 
into  men's  minds  during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years, 
and  has  found  its  fullest  expression  in  the  writings  of 
Friedrich  Nietzsche. 

Surely  biologists  have  not  taken  as  much  note  as 
they  should  of  the  insistence  by  philosophical  anarch- 
ists and  other  disciples  of  Nietzsche  that  their  prophet 
is  the  particular  and  supreme  "philosopher  of  evolu- 
tion." 

Into  the  tumultuous  whirlpool  of  discussion  of  the 
Nietzschean  doctrines  I  have  no  wish  to  enter,  at  least 
in  this  place ;  but  a  few  things  about  it  ought  to  receive 
consideration  by  biologists,  especially  by  American 
biologists.  Should  the  matter  be  thus  attended  to,  I 
believe  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  a  great  measure  of 
truth  in  the  claim  for  Nietzsche  as  the  philosopher  of 
evolution,  evolution  being  conceived  as  it  usually  has 
been  in  the  modern  period;  and  the  particular  point  I 
want  to  make  is  that  he  did  his  philosophizing,  prima- 
rily about  man  and  very  secondarily  about  the  rest  of 
the  living  world,  in  all  but  total  disregard  of,  seem- 
ingly in  almost  total  ignorance  of,  the  natural  history 
aspect  of  biology.  His  appeals  to  physiology,  or  some- 
thing he  called  physiology;  and  to  some  of  the  results 
and  conceptions  of  physiological  psychology  ( although 
I  do  not  recall  his  having  used  exactly  this  phrase) 
were  constant  and  often  very  telling.  But  his  neglect 
of,  yes,  more  than  that,  his  positive  antipathy  for  the 
systematic,  the  coordinational,  the  interdependent  as- 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology     129 

pects  of  living  nature  are  striking  indeed,  once  one 
comes  to  study  his  works  with  the  point  in  mind.  I 
have  searched,  vainly,  both  in  his  own  writings  and  in 
those  of  several  professed  followers  of  his,  for  evidence 
that  the  conceptions  organism  and  organic,  with  the 
meaning  these  terms  have  to  every  genuine  natural 
history  biologist,  enter  in  any  definite  and  positive 
fashion  into  his  philosophy.  And  here  is  the  point  that 
ought  to  arrest  the  attention  of  scientific  men,  indeed 
of  all  thoughtful  persons :  So  far  as  concerns  this  vital 
matter  the  Nietzschean  school  is  in  strict  accord  with 
the  "habits  of  philosophying,"  now  dominant  in 
biology. 

Listen  to  this,  one  of  Nietzsche's  "Apophthegms  and 
Darts"  occurring  in  the  "Twilight  of  the  Idols": 

"I  mistrust  all  systematizers  and  avoid  them.  The 
will  to  system  is  a  lack  of  rectitude." 

What  a  familiar  sound  this  has  to  those  who,  from 
being  at  home  in  the  discussions  of  recent  speculative 
biology,  have  had  dinned  in  their  ears  the  doctrine  that 
systematic  zoology  and  botany  are  old-fashioned,  child- 
ish and  insignificant.  Of  course  any  one  even  moder- 
ately acquainted  with  Nietzsche's  writings  knows  that 
what  he  was  aiming  at  primarily  in  inveighing  against 
systems  was  the  systems  of  traditional  philosophy. 
And  undoubtedly,  as  Miigge  remarks :  "many  have  been 
drawn  to  him  for  this  very  reason."  Presumably  most 
persons,  be  they  scientists  or  philosophers,  be  they 


130  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

admirers  or  detesters  of  Nietzsche,  would  easily  and 
willingly  recognize  that  he  knew  little  and  cared  less 
about  the  systems  of  natural  history.  They  would  go 
further  and  say  that  that  fact  had  no  essential  relation 
to  his  antipathies  against  systems  of  philosophy.  And 
this  brings  us  back  to  the  main  point — the  point  to 
which,  according  to  my  view,  neither  men  of  science  nor 
men  of  philosophy  have  given  sufficient  attention, 
namely,  that  the  system,  the  orderliness  which  every 
educated  person  now  knows  to  be  so  greatly  character- 
istic of  living  nature,  must  enter  fundamentally  into 
any  philosophy  of  man  and  the  animate  world  generally 
in  order  that  that  philosophy  may  be  even  approxi- 
mately true  and  in  any  way  adequate. 

The  following  quotation  from  "Beyond  Good  and 
Evil"  will  open  the  way  to  a  perception  of  the  kindred 
between  Nietzscheism  and  modern  theoretical  biology. 
He  says: 

"Let  me  be  pardoned  as  an  old  philologist  who  can 
not  desist  from  the  mischief  of  putting  his  finger  on 
bad  modes  of  interpretation,  but  'Nature's  conformity 
to  law,'  of  which  you  physicists  talk  so  proudly  as 
though — why  it  exists  only  owing  to  your  interpreta- 
tion and  bad  'philology.'  It  is  no  matter  of  fact,  no 
'text,'  but  rather  just  a  naively  humanitarian  adjust- 
ment and  perversion  of  meaning,  with  which  you  make 
abundant  concessions  to  the  democratic  instincts  of  the 
modern  soul." 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology     131 

The  items  in  this  which  specially  concern  us  are  the 
references  to  nature  and  democracy.  Nietzsche  ap- 
pears to  have  felt  as  genuinely  and  deeply  as  any  mod- 
ern whatever  the  importance  of  "return  to  nature" — a 
cry  which,  though  hackneyed,  he  was  willing  to  adopt. 
For  this  feeling  he  is  entitled,  as  an  esthetic  philoso- 
pher, to  great  credit.  The  keenness  of  perception  and 
vigor  of  expression  with  which  he  protests  against  the 
repudiation  of  external  nature,  the  vilification  of  the 
human  body,  and  the  distrust  of  the  senses,  as  these 
abominations  have  manifested  themselves  in  the  great 
systems  of  historical  philosophy  from  the  later  Greek 
period,  on  through  the  heyday  of  Christian  theology, 
down  into  the  modern  era  of  German  subjectivism,  de- 
serve the  careful  and  sympathetic  regard  of  every  man 
of  science.  The  best  of  his  utterances  under  this  head 
which  I  have  found  are  contained  in  "Beyond  Good 
and  Evil,"  and  "The  Twilight  of  the  Idols."  The 
chapter  on  "Prejudices  of  Philosophers"  in  the  first 
mentioned,  and  the  sections,  "The  Problem  of  Soc- 
rates," "Reason  in  Philosophy,"  and  "Morality  as  Anti- 
naturalness"  deserve  special  mention. 

The  disastrous  mistake  made  by  Nietzsche  and  into 
which  his  disciples  have  followed  him,  was  in  believing 
that  he  actually  did  "return  to  nature."  As  a  matter 
of  fact  he  never  came  any  nearer  nature  than  did  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau,  who  raised  such  a  hullabaloo  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  ago  over  the  same  subject,  and  for 
whom  Nietzsche  professed  such  an  ardent  hatred.  It  is 


The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

easy  for  a  student  of  real  nature  to  understand  why 
Nietzsche  hated  Rousseau  more  spleenishly,  if  such  a 
thing  were  possible,  than  he  hated  people  generally. 
Probably  it  was  because  he  vaguely  realized  that  he 
was  doing  just  what  Rousseau  tried  to  do,  i.  e.,  make  of 
nature  what  he  would  like  to  have  it;  and  then  saw 
that  what  Rousseau  wanted  nature  to  be  was  almost 
the  antithesis  of  what  he  himself  wanted  it  to  be.  While 
Rousseau  wanted  nature  to  be  peaceful,  gentle,  benevo- 
lent and  all  that,  and  so  easily  found  enough  in  it  to 
make  himself  believe  it  to  be  essentially  of  this  sort, 
Nietzsche  as  easily  found  enough  in  it  to  convince  him 
that  in  its  fundamentals  nature  is  of  the  sort  he  liked, 
that  is,  selfish  and  powerful  and  hard  and  cruel. 

Biologists  ought  to  examine  right  carefully 
Nietzsche's  famous  doctrine  of  "Will  to  Power."  His 
effort  to  make  this  a  universal  and  all-sufficing  principle 
of  living  nature  had  its  strict  counterpart,  if  not,  in- 
deed, its  inspiration  and  model,  in  struggle-survivalism 
of  the  Weismannian  type.  And  the  doctrine  has  de- 
generated into  a  sort  of  fiendish  crotchet  with  many 
of  Nietzsche's  disciples,  much  as  strugglism  has  with 
many  biologists.  And  the  reasoning,  if  reasoning  it 
can  justly  be  called,  is  much  the  same  by  the  two  sets 
of  persons.  "Wherever  I  found  living  matter,"  said 
Nietzsche,  "I  found  will  to  power,  and  even  in  the 
servant  I  found  the  yearning  to  be  master."  (Thus 
spake  Zarathustra. )  As  an  illustration  take  an  alli- 
gator, a  great  hunk  of  "living  matter,"  sunning  itself 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  m  Philosophical  Biology     133 

on  a  sand  bank  for  hours  at  a  time  without  so  much  as 
flopping  its  tail.  What  a  striking  case  of  willing  to 
power!  And  what  determination  of  a  servant  to  be  a 
master !  Or  if  Nietzsche  by  chance  ever  looked  through 
a  microscope  at  the  slow  come-and-go  of  protoplasm 
confined  within  the  cell  membrane  in  a  hair  of  a  spider- 
lily,  what  a  convincing  proof  of  "will  to  power"  and 
"desire  for  mastery"  he  had  before  him ! 

And  one  finds  illustrations  and  arguments  quite  as 
convincing  almost  every  time  he  consults  any  orthodox 
Selectionist.  For  instance,  such  a  biologist  will  watch 
with  you  a  hornbill,  a  bird  the  size  of  a  hen  with  a  bill 
as  large  as  the  horn  of  a  two-year-old  bull,  as  the  crea- 
ture strives  to  get  its  bill  out  of  its  way  so  it  can  see  its 
food,  and  then  displays  its  ingenuity  in  getting  the 
food  far  enough  back  in  its  immobile,  bony  mouth  to 
enable  it  to  swallow  the  morsel,  and  will  explain  to  you 
without  a  smile  how  this  bird  and  its  ancestors  have  been 
able  to  survive  in  the  struggle  for  existence  because  of 
the  masterful  bill !  Or,  coming  down  to  pure  and  over- 
whelming logic,  such  a  biologist  wih1  affirm  (still  without 
a  smile)  that  you  are  bound  to  accept  his  explanation 
of  the  hornbill's  bill  unless  you  have  some  better  expla- 
nation to  offer!  And  he  will  go  yet  further  (still  in 
dead  earnest)  and  tell  you  he,  and  not  you,  must  be  the 
judge  of  which  explanation  is  better.  A  very  rudimen- 
tary sense  of  humor  is  another  and  by  no  means  an 
unimportant  trait-in-common  between  Nietzscheans  and 
many  speculative  biologists. 


134  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

But  that  in  particular  which  ought  to  make  these 
biologists  join  with  the  disciples  of  Nietzsche  in  pro- 
claiming their  prophet  the  supreme  philosopher  of  evo- 
lution is  intimated  in  the  following  quotation : 

"Nature's  conformity  to  law  is  no  matter  of  fact 
.  .  .  but  rather  just  a  naively  humanitarian  adjust- 
ment and  perversion  of  meaning  with  which  you  make 
abundant  cencessions  to  the  democratic  instincts  of 
the  modern  soul." 

The  tap-root  of  the  life  philosophy  of  both  groups 
is  the  dogma  that  the  gross,  easily  seen  living  things 
about  us  everywhere  and  all  the  time  are  "mere  out- 
ward expressions"  of  an  Essence,  deep,  invisible,  intan- 
gible, a  comprehension  of  the  working  of  which  and  the 
control  of  which  is  the  goal  of  all  life  science. 

To  be  sure,  the  fact  that  temperamentally  Nietzsche 
was  highly  artistic  and  very  little  scientific  made  him 
interpret  and  evaluate  human  life  in  terms  very  differ- 
ent from  those  used  by  the  biologists  when  they  treat 
of  man.  But  the  close  kindred  between  "Nietzsche's 
cloud-like  visions  of  Eternal  Recurrence  and  Super- 
man" and  the  nebulous  hereditary  substance,  germ 
plasm,  and  "The  Fit"  of  most  biological  eugenists 
should  not  be  overlooked  by  anybody  interested  in  prob- 
lems of  human  welfare.  Nietzsche's  followers  have  not 
been  slow  to  see  the  meaning  of  the  man-breeding  pro- 
posals of  our  day.  Miigge  says : 


Place  of  Definition,  etc.,  in  Philosophical  Biology     135 

"In  Gallon's  Eugenics,  founded  upon  the  idea  of 
evolution  and  the  assumption  that  the  human  will  is  in 
some  small  measure  capable  of  guiding  the  course  of 
evolution,  we  see  a  scientific  realization  of  Nietzsche's 
dreams." 

And  let  no  one,  especially  in  this  democratic  country 
of  ours,  neglect  to  mark  well  the  character  of  those 
dreams :  Autocracy  carried  through  to  its  logical  end. 
The  best  shall  rule  and  "by  means  of  force."  The 
best  shall  be  masters ;  the  community  their  slaves,  lit- 
erally and  not  figuratively.  The  only  law  shall  be  the 
law  of  the  strong,  the  fit. 

Those  eugenists  whose  biological  philosophy  rests  on 
germ-plasmic  fatalism,  appear  not  to  have  recognized 
— probably  because  the  goal  is  so  far  away — that  they 
face  toward  an  aristocracy  most  hateful  to  one  who 
knows  what  democracy  really  means.  Here  again 
Nietzsche  was  more  far-sighted  than  his  biological  coun- 
terparts, for  he  clearly  saw  and  loudly  proclaimed  that 
supermen  must  be  a  very  few  very  select  masters  with 
the  great  common  "herd"  their  slaves. 

And  so  our  discussion  turns  back  to  its  beginning. 
The  laws  of  interdependence,  of  reciprocal  connection 
and  action  which  seem  to  pervade  all  living  nature  and 
bind  it  into  a  great,  infinitely  complex  unity  are  only  a 
seeming,  only  an  outward  manifestation  of  the  ultimate 
Reality,  so  many  biologists  accord  with  Nietzscheans 
in  declaring.  The  "web  of  life"  of  which  the  ordinary 


136  The  Higher  Usefulness  of  Science 

man  recognizes  himself  to  be  a  part  and  which  vulgar 
natural  history  strives  to  describe  and  define  accurately 
and  to  classify  naturally,  is  of  little  profit  or  interest 
because  unreal  or  at  best  semi-real,  say  these  biologists. 

We  may  hope  a  generation  of  students  of  nature  will 
arise  after  a  while,  a  majority  of  whom  will  genuinely 
believe  and  act  in  accordance  with  their  faith,  that 
common  sense  has  a  real  part  in  the  interpretation  of 
nature.  And  when  such  biologists  come  and  succeed  in 
making  themselves  heard  and  felt  there  may  be  ushered 
in  an  era  of  rule  of  the  best  who  will  be  indeed  best  be- 
cause they  will  rule  according  to  the  law  of  the  whole 
and  not  by  the  law  of  some  Being  above  or  beneath  or 
somewhere  else  outside  of  nature,  whether  called  super- 
man or  the  fit,  or  by  some  other  name. 

It  is  high  time  that  natural  history  should  "exert  its 
due  influence  upon  the  current  habits  of  philoso- 
phizing." 


INDEX 


Accidents,  110 

Acid,  64, 

Adamson,  R.,  105 

Affection:      and      esteem      for 

primitive  people,  43 
"Aggregation,"  60 
Alloy,  Heusler's,  66,  69 
Aloofness     from     human     af- 
fairs, 27 
Analytic, 

as  well  as  synthetic,  102 

classification  and  description, 

108 
Analysis,  99 

chemical,  122 

causal,  123 

subjective,      not      objective, 

123 

Anarchists,  philosophical,   128 
Anatomy,  comparative,  108,  118 
Anaxagoras,  mind-stuff-ism,  24 
Animals,  36,  37 

lower,  42 

behavior  of,  55 

odors  of,  122 
Anthropologists :      who      study 

primitive  races,  43 
Anthropology,  29,  39 

cultural,  100 

Antithesis,   constitutive,   10,  47 
Art,  17 

delineative,  43 

religion  and,  59 
Artificial  and  natural,  81 
Asia,  88 
Astrology,  99 
Atomism,  of  Leucippus,  24 


Atoms,  65 
Attributes, 

spiritual      group ;      physical 
group,  28 

life-giving,  35 

physical  and  spiritual,  39 

rudiments  of,  42 

exceptional,  46 

antithesis,  47 

of  water,  65 

latent,  of  molecules,  74 

actual,  75 

of  an  object,  110 

morphological,  118 

physiological,  ecological, 

chemical,  118 
Authority,  churchly,  101 
Automobiles,  makes  of,  111 

Bacteriologist,  52 
Behavior,  experimental,  118 
Being, 

individual,  35 

spiritual,  38 

a  good,  45 

living,  114 
Being  and  Becoming,  doctrines 

of,  23 
Beings, 

living,  dependence  on  chem- 
ical substances,  39 

origin  from  others,  39 

common  bounty  of  all  living, 
42 

physical,  44 

moral  and  mental,  61 
Belgium,  7 


137 


138 


Index 


Bergson, 

"creative  evolution,"  57 

elan  vital,  57 

nature  of  time,  75 
Biochemistry,  93,  118,  120,  122 
Bio-integration,  87,  96,  97 
Biologist, 

professional,  33 

philosophic,  33,  41,  53,  98,  99, 
106 

attitude  of,  118,  132 

speculative,  133,  135 
Biology, 

philosophical,  12,  19 

significance  of,  to  man,  42 

as  it  knows  man,  45 

descriptive,  46 

promise  of,  54,  55 

relation  to  morals,  91,  92 
Bios,  114 
Blood, 

circulation  of,  30 

as  the  vital  fluid,  33 

spirituous    something   in,   34, 
35 

system,  113 

serum  of,  121 
Bodies,  natural,  115 
Botany, 

systematic,  106,  129 

descriptive,  122 
Brain,  35 
Brotherhood, 

human,  29,  47,  58 

of  man,  43,  47,  87 
Buddhism,  85 

Cancer,  explanation  of,  125 
Capabilities,  of  nature,  61 
Catalyzer,  64 
Cattell,  J.  McKeen,  12 
Cause  and  explanation  of  wa- 
ter, 64 
Causes, 

ultimate,  33 

of  action,  34 

effect  implicit  in,  46,  94 


Cell  theory,  60 
Cells,  germ,  41 
Chaos,  126 
Chemistry,  53,  64,  92,  94 

organic,  118 

reduced  to,  122 
Chemists,  22 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  9 
Child,  109,  110 
Christianity,  101,  102 
Circulation  of  the  blood,  30 

discovery  of,  30 

teaching  about,  34 
Civilization,  21 

Christian,  Asiatic,  27 

history  of  science  and,  54 

life   under,    56,    89,    92,    101, 

104 
Classification,  12,  78 

theory  of,  105 

systems  of,  106 

natural,  107 

synoptic,  108,  113 

analytic,  108,  113 

theory  of,  116,  123 

practice  of,  116,  123 
Common  sense,  136 
Conditions,  environic,  80 
Conduct,  personal;  worth  of,  56 
Conflict,  labor  vs.  capital,  49 

Great  Western,  49 

European,  101 
Confucius,  83 

Ethics  of,  83 
Consciousness,  35,  95 
Conservation, 

of  energy,  39 

law  of,  40 
Copernicus,  9 

Cosmography,  Christian,  61 
Cosmological  period,  24 
Creation,  organic,  10 
Criminology,  20 
Crystallization    of    hemoglobin, 

121 

Culture,  43 
Cuvier,  108 


Index 


139 


Cycle,  metabolic,  93 
Cytology,  118 

Darwin,  9,  126 
Darwinian  era,  106 
Dawson,  M.  M.,  83 
Definition,  78 

place  of,  12 

accidental,  110,  113 
Delphic  Oracle,  17,  25 
Democracy,  89 

Nature  and,  131 
Dependence, 

man's  upon  nature,  40 

sense  of,  46 
Descartes,  Ren6,  22 
Description, 

place  of,  12 

of  blood  system,  33,  78 

identical     with     explanation, 
105,  106 

synoptic,  108,  113 

analytic,  108 

reliable,  113,  123 
Determiner,  65,  123 
Determinism, 

materialistic,  18 

mechanistic,  58 
Development,  42 

sense  of,  46 
Dewey,  John,  90 
Differentia,  120 
Differentiation,  10,  96 

chemical,  120 
Doctrines, 

divers,  18 

of  Being  and  Becoming,  23 

of  human  brotherhood,  47 

of  Creation,    Fall,    and    Re- 
demption, 56 

of  human  brotherhood  and  the 
Golden  Rule,  58 

of  the  Fall,  62 

of  theology  and  science,  63 

of  organization,  118 
Dogma,  99 

religious,  101 


Drama  of  human  life,  47,  82 

Earth,  43,  59 
Economic  society,  18 
Economists,  54 
Education,  17 
Egg,  36 

as    one-celled    stage    of    or- 
ganism, 42 
Egoism,  26 
Electrician,  53 
Electrons,  65 
Elements, 

rational,  moral,  esthetic,  and 
religious,  20 

of  the  circulatory  mechanism, 
30 

sensuous,  in  knowledge,  33 

ultimate,  70 
Embryo,  36 
Embryology,  96,  118 
Emotion,  conception  of,  32 
Emotions, 

the  heart  as  seat  of,  31 

physico-psychic  conception  of, 

Engineers,  22,  52 
Environment, 

of  germ,  45 

as  Fate,  83,  94 

normal,  124 
Epiphenomenon,  35,  82 
Essence,  110 
Ethicists,  98 
Ethics,  92 
Eugenics,  135 
Eugenists,  134 
Europe,  100,  101 
Evidence,  inductive,  120 
Evolution, 

another  form  of  transforma- 
tion and  conservation,  40 

organic,  53 

creative,  of  Bergson,  57 

doctrine  of,  106 

philosopher  of,  128 
Experience,  personal,  47 


140 


Index 


Experimentation,  30 

on  organisms,  125 
Explanation, 

causal,  33,  94 

kind  of,  34 

of  magnets,  68 

identical     with     description, 
105 

of  cancer,  125,  132 

Facts,  observable,  33 
Faith,  9 

religious,  85 

in  the  natural  order,  102 

in  the  supernatural,  103,  136 
Fatalism,  germ-plasmic,  135 
Feelings, 

social  and  unsocial,  47 

germinal,  moral,  47 
Forces, 

coordinating  and  unifying,  9 

molecular,  73 
Forecasting,  101 
France,  7 

Galileo,  9,  22 
Gases,  66 
Generalization,  33 
Generation,  chemical,  65 
Genesis, 

organic,  46 

natural,  59 

interpretation  of  natural,  73 

of  living  things,  78 

physical,  80 
Genetics,  118 
Geniuses,  79 

natural  products,  80,  83 
Germ  cells,  41 
Germ  plasm,  82 
Germany, 

doctrine  of  survival  of  the  fit- 
test, 7 

course  of,  8 

deadly  philosophy  of,  9 
Germs,  41 
Golden  Rule,  87 


Gravitation, 
law  of,  39 

type  of  physical  integration, 
40,  73 

Habits,  34 
Haldane,  J.  S.,  127 
Happiness, 

and  misery,  32 

and  efficiency,  95 
Harvey,  William, 

tercentenary  of,  17,  22 

period  of,  29 

contribution     to     self-knowl- 
edge, 31 

interpretation  of  natural  phe- 
nomena, 34 

effect  of  work,  36 

achievements  since,  39 
Heart,  30 

motion  of,  33 

Hemolytic  action  of  blood,  121 
Heredity,  80 

as  Fate,  83 
Histology,  118 
History,  Teggart's  Prolegomena 

to,  77 

Human  body,  131 
Human  species,  39 

"hardly     human,"      "without 
souls,"  43 

scrutiny  of,  46 

gregarious  and  social,  46 

military  type  of,  80 
Huxley,  73,  75,  107 
Hydrogen   and   oxygen,  64,  74 
Hypothesis,  Christianity's  work- 
ing, 62,  125 

Ideals  of  life,  18 
Ideas,  108 
Identity,  42 
Impulse,  fighting,  101 
Individual, 

specificity,  39,  41 

unique,  78,  92 

potency  of,  93,  114 


Index 


141 


Individuality,  94 
Inherency,  34 
Instincts, 

esthetic,  social  and  religious, 
44 

fighting,  88 

religious,  98 
Institutions,  social,  43 
Integratedness, 

of  the  individual  man,  40 

of  man  with  nature,  40 

of  nature,  46 
Integration,  10 

a  primal  phenomenon,  96 
Interdependence, 

human,  26 

of  the  body  parts,  31 

originative    and    sustentative, 
46,  54 

among  men,  96 

laws  of,  135 

Interest,  general  human,  49 
Interpretation, 

of  man,  Socratic,  26 

of  Prospero,  37 

of  natural  phenomena,  Har- 
vey, 34 

of  the  nature  of  blood,  35 

of  the  organism,  81 

of  nature,  136 
Interrelationship  between  blood 

and  nervous  systems,  31 
Intuitionalism,  Bergson's,  57 

James,  William,  90 
Jevons,  W.  S.,  105 

Kellogg,  Vernon,  7 

Kepler,  9,  22 

Know  Thyself,  12,  17,  23,  25,  36 

Knowledge, 

theory  of,  25,  105 

of  self,  35 

experiential,  74,  76 
Knowledge-getting,  process  of, 

25 
Koran,  86 


Lange,  C.,  32 
Language,  43 
Larvae,  71 
Laws,  43 

of  natural  production,  46 
Leucippus,  atomism  of,  24 
Life, 

one-celled  stage  of,  42 

human,  49 

higher,  54 

Logic,  108,  110,  115,  116 
Logician,  26,  109 
Love, 

of  kindred  and  non-kindred, 
46 

and  hate,  47 
Lusitania,  21 

Machine,  chemico-physical,  42 

Malthusianism,  18 

Magnetism,  molecular  theory  of, 

66,  78 
Magnets,  66 

potentially  magnetic,  69,  78 
Man, 

spiritual,  physical,  19 

Socratic  interpretation  of,  26 

interpretations  of,  29 

religious,  30 

and  man  only,  38 

and  beast,  42 

problem  of  nature,  45 

a  moral  being,  45 

at  his  best,  48 

behavior  of,  55 

a  fallen  angel,  62 

an  untrans  formed  brute,  62 

in    the    light    of    his    origin, 
70 

description,      definition     and 
classification  of,  109 

meaning  of  term,  115 
Man's  spiritual  being,  physical 

being,  18 
Master,  132,  135 
Materialistic  determinism,  18 

reasoning,  35 


Index 


Meaning  of  term  man,  116 

in  extension,  117 
Mechanism,  vaso-motor,  32 
Medicine,  20 
Members  of  body,  31 
Metaphysics,  sub j  ectivistic,  125 
Methods, 

of  research,  118 

experimental,  125 
Militarism,  18 
Mill,  J.  S.,  109 
Mind,  affection  of,  32 
Minot,  122 

Modernity  in  science,  30 
Mohammed,  86 
Mohammedanism,  86 
Morality, 

theory  of,  26 

nature  of,  45 

mental,  83 

natural,  103 
Morals,  43,  56,  83,  92 

problem  of,  101 

groundwork  of,  103 

system  of,  104 
Morphology,  117,  118 
Motion,  planetary,  9 
Miigge,  134 


Name,  of  object,  of  idea,  109 
Names,  meaning  of,  108 
Napoleon,  79 
Nations,  45 
Natural, 

and  supernatural,  37 

or  artificial,  81 

order,  faith  in,  102 

bodies,  115 
Natural  History, 

method  of  philosophizing,  77, 
90,  105,  122,  128 

systems  of,  130 

influence  of,  136 
Naturalist, 

an  interpreter  of  nature,  27 

professional,  91 


Nature, 

coordinating  forces  of,  9 

sensuous,  27 

emotional,  of  human  beings, 
30 

bounds  of,  38 

man's  dependence  on,  40 

reasoning  about,  43 

people,  43 

problem  of  man's,  45 

not  moral,  45 

can  produce  moral  beings,  46 

integratedness  of,  46,  103 

system  of,  57,  97 

constitution  of,  58 

production      capabilities     of, 
61 

man's  moral,  79 

man  a  part  of,  103 

children  of,  116 

aspects  of  living,  128,  129 

and  democracy,  131 

return  to,  131 

antithesis  of,  132 

interpretation  of,  136 
Necessity,  logical,  116 
"Neglect  nothing,"  81,  117,  118, 

125 

Newton,  Isaac,  23 
Nietzsche,    Friedrich,    128,    129, 
130,  131,  132,  133,  134 

Obligation, 

man's,  to  man,  26 

to  others,  46 

professional,  98 
Observation,  30 

impersonal,  101 
Occultism,  99 
Offspring,  41 
Ontogenesis,  70 
Orderliness,  130 
Organic  creation,  10 
Organic  evolution,  7,  41 
Organism,  35 

growing,  41 

full-grown,  42 


Index 


143 


Organism, 

completed,  46 

multicellular,  60 

individual  parts  of,  78 

maintains  its  identity,  93 

human,  95 

"as  a  whole,"  96 

traits  of,  113,  114,  122 

normal,  124 

elementary,  127 

conceptions  of,  129 
Organization, 

industrial  and  political,  20 

doctrine  of,  118 
Origin, 

of  bodies,  40 

man's,  44 

by  divine  fiat,  61 

by  mutation,  71 
Ovum,  36 
Oxyhemoglobin,  121 

Parent,  41 

Parts,  containing,  contained,  34 
Passions  and  sentiments,  32 
Peoples,  primitive,  44 
Period,  cosmological,  24 
Personality,  94 
Phenomena,  natural,  34,  76 
Philologist,  130 
Philosophers, 

of  nature,  27 

of  evolution,  128 
Philosophy,  18,  19 

modern,  21 

Greek,  24 

Syrian,  29 

sacred,  profane,  natural,  mi- 
raculous, 29 

Shakesperian,  38 

and  theology,  45 

German  political,  55 

system  of  morals,  83 

scientific,  89 
Phylogenesis,  70 
Physical  science,  21 

scientist,  27 


Physician,  20,  32 

Physicists,  22,  27,  130 

Physics,  66,  92 

Physiology,  transcendental,  35, 

92,  96,  128 
Planetary  motion,  9 
Poet, 

interpreter  of  nature,  27 

skilled  guesser,  36 

the  supreme,  38 
Potentiality,  74 
Power, 

incorporeal,  34 

creative,  46 

conception  of,  94 

will  to,  132 
Pragmatism,  90 
Precipitin  reaction,  121 
Pre-Darwinian  era,  106 
Predicables,  110 
Prediction,  42,  74 
Process, 

nutritive,  41 

generative,  of  nature,  63 

chemical  interaction,  65 
Production,  laws  of  natural,  46 
Psychologists,  26 
Psychology, 

modern,  32 

introspective,  97 

Pure  Reason,  97 

physiological,  128 
Psychotheraphy,  20 

Qualities, 
spiritual,  35 
reality  of  physical,  35 

Races, 

culture  of,  43 

primitive,  43 
Rationality, 

relation  to  instincts,  44 

ultimate,  135 
Realism,  undisguised,  29 
Reality  of  physical  qualities,  35 
Reasoning,  materialistic,  35 


144 


Index 


Reichert  and  Brown,  121 
Religion,  17,  43,  51 

and  ethics,  57 

and  art,  59 

geniuses  in,  83,  89 
Responsibility,  moral,  54 
Rhibany,  Abrahm  Mitrie,  29 
Rousseau,    Jean    Jacques,    131, 
132 

Sanitation,  20 
Savage,  45 
Science,  17,  22,  42 

achievements  of,  45,  49,  50 

impersonal,  51 

"on  the  outskirts  of  life,"  54 

doctrines  of,  63 

moral  obligations  of,  76,  77 

nature  and  aim  of,  78,  84,  88, 

89 

Scientist,  43 
Self, 

theory  of,  19 

myself,  yourself,  26 

deepest  meaning  of,  42 

wisdom  of,  47 

consciousness  of  other  selves, 
47 

realization,  94 
Self-knowledge,  29 
Self-wisdom,  47 
Sensations,  organic,  31 
Senses, 

hidden  from  the,  34 

distrust  of,  131 
Sentiments  and  passions,  32 
Shakespeare, 

tercentenary  of,  17 

period  of,  22 

deals  with  externality,  27 

work  of,  30 

interest  in  animals,  37 

achievements  since,  39 
Society, 

economic,  18, 19 

member  of,  92 
Sociologists,  54,  99 


Sociology,  20 
Socratic, 

r"  ;m,  27 
ry  of  life,  27 
Socrates,  17,  23 

seeker  after  truth,  24 

an  evil-doer,  25 

doctrine  of  self,  26 

theory  of  life,  27 

dialectic,  33,  38 

The  Problem  of,  131 
Specialist,  scientific,  49,  52 
Specialization,  55 

in  scientific  discipline,  98 
Specificity,  individual,  39,  41 
Sperm,  121 
Spermatogenesis,  119 
Spirits,  33 

causes  of  activity,  34 

scare  the,  37 

Stages  in  development,  36 
State,  18,  81 
Structure, 

correlation  of,  107 

chromosomal,  119 
Struggle  for  existence,  7 

"Weismannian    type    of,    132, 

133 

Subjectivism,  German,  131 
Substances, 

aerial,  34 

chemical,  40,  94 

inorganic,  42 
Supernatural, 

belief  in,  102 

faith  in,  103  [55,  58" 

Survival  of  the   fittest,   7,   54, 

Weismannian  type  of,  32 
Sustentation,     gravitation     the 

universal  law  of,  40 
Synthetic, 

as  well  as  analytic,  102 

classification  and  description, 

108 

Synthesis,  86,  94 
System, 

Socratic,  27 


Index 


145 


System, 

vaso-motor,  31,  32 
blood-system,  33,  113 
of  the  living  world,  36 
moral,  of  Confucius,  85 
of  morals,  104 

Systems, 

anatomico-physiological,  30 

of  our  members,  31 

of  classification,  106 

of  natural  history,  130 

of  historical  philosophy,  101 

Talents,  special,  30 
Taxonomy,  107 

Teggart's  Prolegomena  to  His- 
tory, 77 
Temples, 

of  religion,  art,  education  or 
science,  17 

religion,  philosophy  and  sci- 
ence, 36,  39,  45,  47 

of  poesy  and  all  art,  39 
Tercentenary     of     Shakespeare 

and  Harvey,  17 
Theology, 

of  God  of  War,  8 

and  philosophy,  19,  45 

Christian,  30,  131 

doctrines  of,  63 
Theories, 

influential  among  men,  6 

ideals  of  life,  18 

of  self  and  society,  19 

of  man's  physical  being,  20 

of  origin  of  man  and  world, 
56 

relation  to  religion  and  ethics, 
57 

Christian,  84 
Theory, 

German,  of  national  life,  7 

and  practice,  10 

of  self,  18 

of  knowledge,  25,  105 

of  morality,  26 

of  life,  Socratic,  26 


Theory, 

of  emotion,  James  Lange's,  31 

cell,  60 

molecular,  of  magnetism,  66, 
68 

of  classification,  105 
Totality,  70 
Trade,  20 

Traits,  distinguishing,  112 
Transformation, 

law  of  origin  of  bodies,  40 

of    foreign    substances    into 

growing  organism,  41 
Treviranus,  G.  R.,  118 
Truths,  biological,  95 
Type,  military,  80 

Unification,  10,  35 
United  States,  5,  89,  101 
Unity, 

within  the  individual  man,  36 

individuals,  with  organic  na- 
ture, 36 

between  physical  and  spirit- 
ual, 36 

of  the  individual  man,  40 

of  God,  86 

infinitely  complex,  135 
Universe, 

geocentric   conception  of,  53 

nebulosity  of,  73 

all-pervading,  85 

Value, 

appraisements  of,  33 

scientific,  116 
Veins,  30 

View,  mechanistic,  73 
Virtue,  85 

Walls,  arterial,  37 
War, 

guiding  principle  in,  7 

war-machine,  22,  49 

an  affair  of  engineering  and 

chemistry,  53,  82 
Water,  23 


140 


Index 


Water, 

production  of,  64 

explanation  of,  64,  65,  66,  74 

transformation  into,  75 
Welfare, 

spiritual,  44 

man's  highest,  49 
Weismannism,  83 
West,  civilization  of,  21 
Whewell,  William,  77,  90,  105 
White,  Andrew  D.,  100 
"Will  to  Power,"  131,  132 
World, 

world-stuif,  23 


World, 

a  moral  order,  45 

animate,  46 

western,  26,  47,  83 

business,  54 
Worm,  36 

"of  earth,"  84 
Worth, 

of  men  and  of  others,  56 

of  the  world  and  of  man,  61 


Zoology,  71 
systematic,  106,  122,  129 


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